a: college credit or credit hour
e: most students are comfortable with the general idea of receiving credit for coursework even before they enter college. But colleges and universities use what’s known as the “credit hour” which is different from high school. In order to understand the credit hour, you must also understand the “contact hour” because the number of contact hours, or hours spent in the classroom, dictates the number of credit hours you earn for your course.
one college credit hour generally means that a student has had one hour of class instruction per week over the course of 15 weeks (a semester), as well as about 2 hours of out-of-classroom work, which could be homework, labs, practicum, etc. Therefore, most core classes for your major are worth 3 credits, because they usually meet 3 times a week for an hour, or twice a week for 90 minutes and have corresponding out-of-class assignments. 2- and 1-hour classes are smaller classes that meet for less time and require less work, like electives, but still count towards your bottom line.
