The U.S. Course and Credit System Academic work at U.S. institutions of higher education is organized in concentrated modules of subject matter called courses . Each U.S. academic course occupies a scheduled amount of instructional time each term, in addition to laboratory, field exercise, homework, and research or creative requirements associated with the course. In some cases, courses may be called lecture courses , laboratory courses , studio or performance courses , fieldwork courses , practica or clinical courses , seminars , or independent research . These terms simply denote the type of academic experience provided by the course. Successful completion of a course results in the student's academic record being marked with both a course grade and a set number of credit hours accumulated.
Credit hours are the number of hours of instruction that the course is scheduled for per week.
Degree programs require that a specified number of credit hours, and therefore courses, be accumulated by the student as one of the graduation requirements. Lecture courses are usually identified as such. Laboratory, fieldwork, seminar, and independent study courses all involve concentrated research studies and the preparation of reports and papers. Practica or clinical courses involve supervised exercises in real professional work settings. U.S. Grading Systems U.S. educators use a variety of grading systems depending upon the nature of the work being assessed and the philosophy of the faculty or institution regarding judging student work.