Financial Aspects of College Transfer for a Geology Major

[ucbalumnus]

@merc81

A top LAC geosciences department will offer ~20 courses on an annual basis, and another ~10 courses on a biannual basis.

This would require about 10 courses per semester from the annual ones, and another 2-3 courses per semester from the once every two years courses, for a total of 12-13 courses per semester.

Examples? Looking at a few LACs in the Keck consortium:

Amherst: https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/departments/geology/courses/1516F
About 3 introductory-level and 4 non-introductory-level courses per semester, with most non-introductory-level courses once every two years.

Williams: http://geosciences.williams.edu/courses/
About 4 introductory-level and 7 non-introductory-level courses per semester. It is not clear whether most of these are offered every year or every two years.

For a small non-LAC:

South Dakota School of Mines and Technology: http://www.sdsmt.edu/Academics/Departments/Geology-and-Geological-Engineering/Docs/4-semester-teaching-rotation-10-13-2015/
About 20 courses per semester, about two thirds of which are yearly courses, with the rest offered every two years.

For the student’s current school:

University of Maine: https://umaine.edu/earthclimate/undergraduate-studies/program_requirements/#sched
About 5 introductory-level and 5-7 non-introductory-level courses per semester, with a mix of yearly and every two years courses.

@merc81

courses at a well-resourced LAC are unlikely to be closed for reasons such as over or under-enrollment

That seems to be more of a characteristic of well resourced schools, not whether they are LACs or otherwise.

@merc81

Beyond the above, LACs tend to encourage, and almost always allow, registration in upper-level courses across the curriculum, irrespective of a student’s major.

That is not unique to LACs. Registration in upper level courses outside of one’s major would only be gated by prerequisites and course popularity.