What is a credit hour at a USA university? If a master's requires 36 credit hours, does this not mean 36 hours of study?

A typical course in the US is 3 credit hours. You need 36/3 = 12 courses. This means you need to take 12 courses to complete your Master's degree. There will be a restriction as to what course is required (must) and what are optional (you can choose from) to get to 12 courses and thus the degree.

A typical course in the US is 3 credit hours. You need 36/3 = 12 courses. This means you need to take 12 courses to complete your Master's degree. There will be a restriction as to what course is required (must) and what are optional (you can choose from) to get to 12 courses and thus the degree.

A school calendar year consists of typical two-semester + summer. For graduate students, they suggest you take no more 4 courses. But 3 is typically considered a full-time (FT) student.

So let’s say you are FT, and take 3 courses each with 3 credit hours. So you end up taking 9 credit hrs per semester. This will translate into 4 semesters = 2 years to complete the Masters's degree.

The workload for each course is designed as follows.

3 credit per course = 3 lecture class in a week. It can be one of the following:

  • 3 one hour class M/W/F
  • 2 1 1/2 hr class T/Th
  • 1 3 hr class W or SAT, etc

Typically a student is supposed to spend

  • 1 hr before the lecture preparing for the lecture (reading)
  • 1 hr lecture class
  • 2 hrs after the lecture doing the h/w, assignment, etc

So for each credit hour, you need to spend 3 hrs (average) so for a 3 hr of lecture a week you need to spend 9 hrs in preparing.

So if you take 9 hrs of lecture in a week (FT student) you need to spend 9 x 3 = 27 hrs studying. Thus a total of 36 hrs related to schoolwork. This translates to the FT workload.

If you work on campus (most grad students do) or off-campus - which is usually 20 hrs. You are talking about 60 hrs of work.

Remember, if you have difficulty in a subject or trying to take a new subject you need to invest more time.