READ | TEACHING @ | INTERNATIONAL | ACADEMIC CULTURE
Culture and Cross-Cultural Issues | Academic Culture | Second Language Anxiety | Communication Skills
Undergraduate Education at The Ohio State University
Many university undergraduate programs, like ours at Ohio State, have established a "general education curriculum" (GEC) requirement. The GEC is based on a liberal arts philosophy that requires all students to take a range of courses in many different disciplines. This is common practice at most U.S. colleges and universities, and has been a part of the tradition of U.S. higher education from its beginnings. The purpose of the GEC is to assure that all college graduates have been broadly educated and are well-rounded individuals who have enough understanding of many disciplinary areas to be good citizens. For example, all students must demonstrate proficiency in English and mathematics. In addition, most students have course requirements in foreign languages, biological or physical sciences, social and behavioral sciences, and humanities.Traditionally, at the completion of the GEC requirements (which usually takes at least two years), students are asked to choose a specific program of study or "major" on which to concentrate for the remainder of their undergraduate studies. More commonly, students declare a major early on and take courses in their prospective majors at the same time as they fulfill GEC requirements. A student majoring in chemical engineering, for example, may also be enrolled in a GEC English literature course. Similarly, a sociology major may be taking a GEC algebra course.
Many undergraduate, introductory-level courses (GEC requirements, such as introductory biology, chemistry, psychology, and sociology) have large sections. Enrollment in these courses varies, and specific sections can range from 100 to 700 students each quarter. There are even some in the thousands. In order to help facilitate teacher-student interaction, many of these large introductory-level courses are accompanied by smaller laboratory or recitation sections which are taught by TAs.
In these sections, TAs are expected to facilitate discussion around topics covered by the course supervisor during lecture, or (in the case of a laboratory section) lead active demonstrations or guide short experiments. In introductory-level courses with low enrollment, TAs may have full responsibility for the class. A more detailed discussion of teaching responsibilities and roles can be found in Teaching Contexts.
Colleges and universities in the United States use a credit system in which each course is allotted a specific number of "credit hours," representing the number of hours the student spends in class each week. At Ohio State, a normal course load for an undergraduate is 12 to 15 credit hours per quarter, or the equivalent of 4 to 5 courses. This means that students will be in the classroom between 12 to 15 hours a week, or more if they take courses requiring labs or studio work. Graduate students usually take 10 to 12 credit hours per quarter.
A student's performance in a course is evaluated by the course instructor or TA. At Ohio State, the most commonly used system consists of letter grades (A, B, C, D, E), which may be further distinguished by either a plus (+) or minus (-). The grading system at Ohio State, like many other colleges and universities, is based on a four-point scale. Grade "A" is 4 points, grade "B" is 3 points, grade "C" is 2 points, grade "D" is 1 point, and grade "E" is 0 points. Credit hours are multiplied by the grades to determine a student's "grade-point average" (GPA). For more information on grades, see Evaluating Student Learning.
 previous page |
