How does american college grading work?

[nvictor]

Hello all,

I'm an international student. Came to Towson University since Saturday. We haven't started yet; this is the international students orientation week. Despite all the explanations I don't understand how the grading system work.

My major is Computer Science.

I've been in french system. I don't get full comprehension of their units, credits, GPA, etc... Their catalog is purely theoric. No example.

I need examples. I want to know how I can take more courses. How I can finish sooner than 4 years. How to calculate those things by myself.

So if you know something about it. Please help me, because my big problem is that I have difficulties to communicate with my roomates. thanks in advance.

[Doku]

Most colleges require around 120 credits to get a degree. Each class that you take is worth a number of credits, generally 3 or 4. (The credits are based on the time a class takes, not how difficult they are.)
Grades are A,B,C,D,F. At most colleges, you need at least a C as a final grade in a class to earn the credits for that class. For computing your GPA, A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, F=0. Multiply final grade times number of credits. Add them all up and divide by total number of credits taken.

At most colleges, the difficulty of the class can be determined by the course number. ie: a 1xx class is a very easy class, and a 4xx class is much more difficult. (referred to as 100 level and 400 level classes)

Most colleges require you to take some speciffic classes in your major (called major classes), and some more from a selected list in your major (upper major, or specialized major), and some classes from all other majors (core classes, General Education/GenEd).


There are a few ways to speed up the education process.
1) Take more than the standard 15 credits per semester course load. You can easily fit more than 5 classes per semester into a schedule. (doing all the work that is required outside of class, however, is another matter) In general, a 3 credit class is expecting 3 hours of work in the classroom per week, and 6 hours of work outside of the classroom per week.
2) Take CLEP tests.
3) Take AP classes in high school. (If you go to a public school in the US)

I highly recommend option number 2. With #2, you pay 40 bucks or so, and pass a test or not. 40 bucks + 2 hours (drive time, etc) for 3 credits... or 9 hours a week for 4 months. hmm...

(Check with your college to see if they accept CLEP before you spend the time/money on it. Ask at the Registrar's office.)

[nvictor]

Thanks a lot DOKU, it's more clear now.

[nvictor]

Originally Posted by Doku

Most colleges require around 120 credits to get a degree. Each class that you take is worth a number of credits, generally 3 or 4. (The credits are based on the time a class takes, not how difficult they are.)
Grades are A,B,C,D,F. At most colleges, you need at least a C as a final grade in a class to earn the credits for that class. For computing your GPA, A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, F=0. Multiply final grade times number of credits. Add them all up and divide by total number of credits taken.

At most colleges, the difficulty of the class can be determined by the course number. ie: a 1xx class is a very easy class, and a 4xx class is much more difficult. (referred to as 100 level and 400 level classes)

Most colleges require you to take some speciffic classes in your major (called major classes), and some more from a selected list in your major (upper major, or specialized major), and some classes from all other majors (core classes, General Education/GenEd).


There are a few ways to speed up the education process.
1) Take more than the standard 15 credits per semester course load. You can easily fit more than 5 classes per semester into a schedule. (doing all the work that is required outside of class, however, is another matter) In general, a 3 credit class is expecting 3 hours of work in the classroom per week, and 6 hours of work outside of the classroom per week.
2) Take CLEP tests.
3) Take AP classes in high school. (If you go to a public school in the US)

I highly recommend option number 2. With #2, you pay 40 bucks or so, and pass a test or not. 40 bucks + 2 hours (drive time, etc) for 3 credits... or 9 hours a week for 4 months. hmm...

(Check with your college to see if they accept CLEP before you spend the time/money on it. Ask at the Registrar's office.)

Yes they do : Office of the Registrar - Towson University

They even do the tests. The problem is that the only test that I can take COSC 111 is already advised by my advisor and put into me temporary schedule.

Another question, how do you know what to study for the test?

[Doku]

Originally Posted by nvictor

They even do the tests. The problem is that the only test that I can take COSC 111 is already advised by my advisor and put into me temporary schedule.

That's the only test you can take? You don't necessarily want to take the CLEP tests within your major. You want to take the CLEP tests to get out of the "GenEd"/busywork classes that most college make you take. Examples from that Towson page: English Lit, American Lit, Micro/Macro economics, Intro to Sociology.

Another question, how do you know what to study for the test?

Check the CLEP website. There is also plenty of other information online. Most book stores (Borders, Barnes and Noble, etc) have CLEP books.

Looking at that Towson page, you also have other options. Example: the Departmental Exams page linked from there: If, after taking the placement exams that you generally take when you start, or before you start, you would start in Calc2 instead of Calc... Ask to take the Calc 1 challenge exam. It will cost you 100 bucks, plus another 160 for the 4 credits. BUT, by placing you in calc2, they have pretty much told you that you passes the calc1 challenge exam... so paying 260 for them to just give you 4 credits seems like a no-brainer.

You had said in other posts that you plan on working while in college... If you want to do work within your major, talk with the department head about having an independant study project. Basically, you work your job, write up a report, and get credit for the experience... as well as getting paid by the employer.

There are LOTS of ways that you can cut down on what is needed for a college degree.

OH! One other thing... You're from Togo. I assume that you speak french fluently. Check with the registrar and see if you can take the French CLEP test as some of the "general elective" credits. (French 1 and 2) You should be able to apply a CLEP to: Gen Ed II.C.3. Western Heritage: Cultural Plurality and Diversity. Speciffic classes are FREN201, FREN202.

[John Wesley]

The Professors give terrible lectures that no one learns from then they post homeworks without teaching you how to do them. Students either struggle to teach themselves from the book or go to Teacher office hours where they are told the answers.

The best way to earn A's is to go to office hours constantly and agree with everything the teacher says.

[nvictor]

DOKU, you are a really big help.
Thanks a lot. I'll let you know about all this.

[nvictor]

Originally Posted by John Wesley

The Professors give terrible lectures that no one learns from then they post homeworks without teaching you how to do them. Students either struggle to teach themselves from the book or go to Teacher office hours where they are told the answers.

The best way to earn A's is to go to office hours constantly and agree with everything the teacher says.

Thanks John.

[Doku]

Here are a few tips about getting As in most college classes in the US.
1) Pay attention to what the professor says in class. The tests are almost always from what he says. If he says something wrong, and it appears on the test later, what he said in class is what he wants, not the correct answer.

2) Read the first chapter of each book before starting the class. That way you can tell if they are really just reading from the book, or giving you better insight into the material. If they are reading from the book, you can pretty much tune them out in class.

3) If you really want to LEARN anything, look for the classes that only show up once a year or once every two years. They are generally specialized classes, and have very few students. That allows you more time to get more questions answered, and it is generally a subject that the prof is passionate about, so he will actually TEACH you.

4) Independant study projects. It is very hard to actually fail an independant study project. Also, you generally get much better instruction on them. How independant study projects work: Pick a topic that you're passionate about. Look through the course book. If it is in there, pick another topic. Once you've found something that you're passionate about, talk to the department head, and tell them that you would really like to research that topic, etc. and ask them if there is any professor there that is interested in the same thing that might sponsor you for an indepenant study. Go from there. (I did one in parallel computing, and another in high performance graphics processing. Incedently, my job now deals with programming supercomputers.)

[nvictor]

DOKU, what's a supercomputer ?

[Doku]

Supercomputers come in three flavors.
1) massive clusters of computers. Literally thousands of computers working on different pieces of the same problem.
2) a single machine with many very fast processors.
3) a single machine with lots of specialized hardware that can only do a single task, but do it very fast.

Almost all modern supercomputers are of the second variety. Some of the more public projects are Seti@home, Folding@home, distributed.net, etc.

Supercomputer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia