Credit Hour System

The credit hour is the academic unit used at Mitchell Tech. Mitchell Tech defines a credit hour on the basis of the Carnegie unit. This defines a semester unit of credit as equal to a minimum of three hours of work per week for a semester. Thus, a unit of credit at Mitchell Tech equates to three hours of student work per week for a minimum 15 weeks.

All credits require assimilation of specified knowledge and skills comparable to and consistent with learning objectives established for similar courses and levels at other accredited institutions of higher learning.

Lecture Courses

For a lecture course, one credit is considered to be one 50-minute period of lecture class time and two hours of outside of class work per week.

Lab Courses

For a lab course, one credit is considered to be a minimum of 150 minutes of lab time per week. The 150 minutes may be a combination of time in the lab with faculty supervision and time the student spends on projects or activities on his or her own.

Internships

An internship or externship credit involves a minimum of 40 hours working at an assigned job location. The student will be working for an employer under the supervision of a qualified instructor.

Distance Education Courses

Courses that do not have the required face-to-face contact time (for example, hybrid, online, or correspondence) must also meet the credit hour standard of three hours of work per week for 15 weeks. A distance education course meets this standard if the course covers the same material in the same depth as a face-to-face version of the same course. If no face-to-face version exists at Mitchell Tech, the course credit hour assignment is based on the total learning time the instructor developing or teaching a course would expect for a student to satisfactorily complete the work of the course.