Academic Credit: Colleges' Common Currency Has No Set Value

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

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.

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.

Is there a non-paywalled version?