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Useful university credits translation
Nov. 5th, 2010 02:40 pmCredit equivalence
As a general rule, one UK credit equates to 10 hours of work; a 10-credit course unit therefore requires 100 hours of study on average.
[...]
As a guide for American students:
* 10 Manchester credits = 3 US credits
* 20 Manchester credits = 5 US credits
As a guide for EU students:
* 10 Manchester credits = 5 ECTS credits
* 20 Manchester credits = 10 ECTS credits
My 10 credit courses say to do 100 hours studying too, so UEA has same rules.
We get two hours teacher time per week over 12 weeks, so we need roughly 3 hours study outside class for every one hour in class. 2 hour lesson, six hours reading and stuff.
20 credit units have 4 hours of lesson and 12 hours of reading to do.
So my 30 credits this semester have every week 6 hours of lesson and 18 hours of studying to do, plus some extra to round things up properly.
Most people do 60 credits per semester, so double all that.
And then there's two semesters per year.
120 credits per level, 3 levels to a degree.
UK degrees are 360 credits requiring 3600 hours of study.
Do American degrees have 3 levels, or more?
The web says US degrees are about 120 credits.
Which is like 400 UK credits. We're 40 UK credits short of equivalence? That's more than I do in a semester. Huh.
Wait, that's 400 UK credits if I figure it from the 10 credit units. How is 20 credits not worth double of 10 credits? Puzzlement. The other way it's many more credits short.
Same titles, different degrees.
I keep reading in the newspapers people talking about one year, two year, three year degrees, and they're not comparing apples and apples. You need to compare the credits and levels before you know what the course is actually doing. You can smush a lot more credits in a year if you have more than two semesters. But there's only so many credits you can fit into a week because of that 100 hour recommendation. I see people in newspaper comments threads complaining how they only got taught two hours a week and it was pathetic, and I want to tell them in BIG LETTERS, that's because you needed to do the other 75% yourself. Self directed study. So a lot of what people are complaining about isn't study or credits or degrees, it's CONTACT HOURS where they're standing in front of a human teacher type person, and that varies from course to course and institution to institution. There's plenty of room to complain that you want more class time and less self directed study, but you're getting different learning and skills out of each pattern. There's also plenty of room to complain that you're paying big money on some courses for the privilege of a reading list and a library; there are some courses where I don't exactly see where the money is going. I can see how the topic and credits are academically useful, it's just the thing where they cost exactly the same as the credits with much more teacher that kind of baffles.
My class at college that teach yelled at? The yelling was because there's *zero* evidence that they do *any* hours outside of class, which means they're only doing about 25% of what they're supposed to, and expecting to get good grades out of it. I think many of the people I was listening to complaining in the corridor outside the exam had not grasped this. They were saying all their hours went to their dissertation, so it's not like they're slacking, but you have to study enough hours for each of the credits you're doing, else you just won't pass. Which is one big reason why I'm part time, so I don't have to juggle and smash some.
I'm now tempted to turn various degrees into GURPS skill points.
... my geek is showing ...
As a general rule, one UK credit equates to 10 hours of work; a 10-credit course unit therefore requires 100 hours of study on average.
[...]
As a guide for American students:
* 10 Manchester credits = 3 US credits
* 20 Manchester credits = 5 US credits
As a guide for EU students:
* 10 Manchester credits = 5 ECTS credits
* 20 Manchester credits = 10 ECTS credits
My 10 credit courses say to do 100 hours studying too, so UEA has same rules.
We get two hours teacher time per week over 12 weeks, so we need roughly 3 hours study outside class for every one hour in class. 2 hour lesson, six hours reading and stuff.
20 credit units have 4 hours of lesson and 12 hours of reading to do.
So my 30 credits this semester have every week 6 hours of lesson and 18 hours of studying to do, plus some extra to round things up properly.
Most people do 60 credits per semester, so double all that.
And then there's two semesters per year.
120 credits per level, 3 levels to a degree.
UK degrees are 360 credits requiring 3600 hours of study.
Do American degrees have 3 levels, or more?
The web says US degrees are about 120 credits.
Which is like 400 UK credits. We're 40 UK credits short of equivalence? That's more than I do in a semester. Huh.
Wait, that's 400 UK credits if I figure it from the 10 credit units. How is 20 credits not worth double of 10 credits? Puzzlement. The other way it's many more credits short.
Same titles, different degrees.
I keep reading in the newspapers people talking about one year, two year, three year degrees, and they're not comparing apples and apples. You need to compare the credits and levels before you know what the course is actually doing. You can smush a lot more credits in a year if you have more than two semesters. But there's only so many credits you can fit into a week because of that 100 hour recommendation. I see people in newspaper comments threads complaining how they only got taught two hours a week and it was pathetic, and I want to tell them in BIG LETTERS, that's because you needed to do the other 75% yourself. Self directed study. So a lot of what people are complaining about isn't study or credits or degrees, it's CONTACT HOURS where they're standing in front of a human teacher type person, and that varies from course to course and institution to institution. There's plenty of room to complain that you want more class time and less self directed study, but you're getting different learning and skills out of each pattern. There's also plenty of room to complain that you're paying big money on some courses for the privilege of a reading list and a library; there are some courses where I don't exactly see where the money is going. I can see how the topic and credits are academically useful, it's just the thing where they cost exactly the same as the credits with much more teacher that kind of baffles.
My class at college that teach yelled at? The yelling was because there's *zero* evidence that they do *any* hours outside of class, which means they're only doing about 25% of what they're supposed to, and expecting to get good grades out of it. I think many of the people I was listening to complaining in the corridor outside the exam had not grasped this. They were saying all their hours went to their dissertation, so it's not like they're slacking, but you have to study enough hours for each of the credits you're doing, else you just won't pass. Which is one big reason why I'm part time, so I don't have to juggle and smash some.
I'm now tempted to turn various degrees into GURPS skill points.
... my geek is showing ...