I know it sounds stupid, but I really don’t.
A semester hour (often called a credit hour) is the number of hours you are enrolled in in a week. Thus, a person registered for 12 semester hours is registered and takes courses totaling 12 hours of weekly classes. This is usually 4 lessons, as most lessons are 3 credit hours. Many science classes like biology and chemistry are longer hours. Most biology classes I took were 4 hours and most chemistry classes were 5 hours.
So if you look at something that says you need a minimum of 8 semester hours in biology, that would mean all of your classes should equal 8 or more. It would probably be 2 lessons (since, as I said, many science lessons are 4 hours), but not always.
You could say, a physical science class that is only 3 hours long, and another class, say a life science class that is only 3 hours long…totaling 6 hours…so you would need another 2 hours (minimum) to make your 8 .
Or another option (more likely) is to take 1 general biology course in 4 hours per semester and then another biology course, say a microbiology course also in 4 hours… giving you 8 hours in total.
I hope this helps you.
If you look closely at your transcript or your school’s class schedule (or your transcript), you will notice special “coding” in each class. Often these codes tell you how many hours the course is worth and what type of course it is. Each school’s coding is different (some use 3 digits, some use 4), but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty easy to figure out how to read and understand your study plan. (what you need to do to graduate)
For instance:
BIO 1114 would be a 4 hour freshman level biology course.
BIO 2124 would be a 4 hour second year biology course
ACT 3113 would be a junior level accounting course that is only 3 credit hours
MATH 4713 would be a 3 credit hour upper level math course.
PSY 3223 would be a junior level psychology course with 3 credit hours
CHEM 5225 would be a “Graduate – (5th year)” level Chemistry course worth 5 hours.
24 Hours Semester
Well, a semester is six months to begin with. Semester hours are the number of credit hours a student takes during a semester, usually for a college or university to count toward a degree. So, in other words, 8 semester hours equals 8 half-year credits.