

Academic Credit: Colleges' Common Currency Has No Set Value - cwan
http://chronicle.com/article/Academic-Credit-Colleges/124973/

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wyclif
I'm sorry, Chronicle of Higher Education, but you need an education on
paywalls and why they are a show stopper on the Web.

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alphaoverlord
From what I have seen, course credit's only function seems to be creating a
standard between "full-time" and "part-time" students. Although this has
practical implications due to requirements for financial aid, merit
scholarships, and work-study, there is rarely any other value and is often
easily circumvented.

The fact is that humanities and other classes are often easier than science
and engineering classes, and when classes are standardized (usually 3
credits), there can be no meaningful scale in respect to difficulty or time
spent studying/learning. This, coupled with the differences in rigor across
institutions make such a construct difficult to determine or enforce.

Transferring credits from a local college during time in high school to my
eventual undergrad, I have seen that the number of course credits/hours is
meaningless. The important transfers were for equivalent classes that were
major requirements, regardless of how many hours they were. Without transfer
for credit of equivalent classes, credit hours is worthless - it does not
signify process towards degree and is simply a GPA boost.

This concept also is carried across to medical school, which is kind of
ridiculous. If I spent 60 hours in the hospital a week, does that mean I have
20 course credits? I am willing to guarantee I work harder for those 20 hours
(plus much more time outside of the hospital), than 20 hours of classes I had
in undergrad.

Then again, I'm not even sure it's reasonable or relevant to regulate credit
hours. This is just a BS bureaucratic way to try to standardize education. I'm
sure anyone who visits HN regularly would recognize such institutional
approaches are bunk. You learn as much as you want, and it depends entirely on
self motivation.

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jules
Very true, even within one university. I once took a class on the physics of
life, that is, I photocopied the last couple of pages from the book containing
lists of formulas from another student and did the exam (books allowed). I had
no idea whatsoever the subject was about, but by guessing which formulas to
use based on the units I was able to complete the exam. 4 ECTS credits for 2
hours of work.

On the other hand there are experimental courses where you spend many many
times that amount of time to get 4 credits.

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kd0amg
Is there a non-paywalled version?

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dpapathanasiou
Google's site search got me this, which _does_ contain the whole article, but
I'm not sure how much longer the key will be valid:
[http://chronicle.com/article/Academic-Credit-
Colleges/124973...](http://chronicle.com/article/Academic-Credit-
Colleges/124973/?key=QWx1J1Nua3FHN302ZmpJY2tROHJrMx0hNSVPbC9zbllTFQ%3D%3D)

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DrJokepu
Pastebin: <http://pastebin.com/LHY9etBp>

