College Q and A

What’s a credit hour? 

It’s a unit of measure for academic credit.  Courses are measured in credit hours (i.e. how much time you spend in one class during a week), and range from one (like a freshman orientation course) to twelve (like an internship or student teaching experience) hours in some cases.  However, most college courses are three credit hours.  That would mean you spent about three hours every week in class for that one course.  Twelve credit hours (or about four courses) is usually the minimum load to be considered a full-time student, but 14 to 16 is a normal load.  It usually takes at least 120 credit hours to graduate.  So if you take 15 credit hours each semester for four years, you would earn 120 credit hours.  Courses can also be measured in quarter hours at schools that use trimesters or quarters instead of semesters.

Is a suite the same thing as a dorm room (my parents keep saying “dorm”, but the school calls them suites)?

Well, they’re kind of the same thing…and the preferred term is residence hall room, not dorm.  In the same way a Dodge Caravan and a Dodge Viper are both vehicles, they are both places you might live on campus.  They both get you there, but the Caravan is more basic and functional, where the Viper has all the bells and whistles, and you’d probably rather have one of those…  The relative cost is likely similar – i.e. residence hall room = Caravan, suite = Viper (although maybe not as pronounced).

A residence hall room is a room you would share with one other person, usually in a tall building or along a long hallway (or both) filled with other similar rooms, with a community bathroom.  It was the norm when your parents were your age, and many schools still have them.  A suite is a newer form of campus housing where two or more “suitemates” have separate sleeping rooms, but a common living area, and there might be a kitchenette.  Suites house 2, 3, 4 or more individuals, usually but not always the same gender, and have either one bathroom for the suite or one with each sleeping room.  The buildings suites are housed in may look like a dormitory or even like an apartment building, but are likely to have college employees, hall government, intramural sports, and tons of other activities and programs – much the same as a residence hall.  You may also have the opportunity to choose to live in a campus apartment.  The difference there would be the presence of a full kitchen, maybe larger bedrooms, and a setup just like any apartment.  Apartments might be set aside for older students, those with families, or those hoping to be removed from the activity and associated noise that is common in housing for underclassmen or new students.

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