Hi all, I'm currently teaching a 200 level course at my high school in partnership with the local community college. It is the only 200 level course offered at my high school. The other classes are all 100 level. I was wondering if anyone had any good explanation of what the differences were between levels of courses. I know when I was an undergrad taking history courses, the profs clearly distinguished between the 300 and 400 level courses. Usually the 400 level courses had to write longer papers or do additional assignments. However, I'm just wondering if there are any general differences between the different numbered levels of courses? Thanks, Matt
In my classes, the 100 level usually was the course that would be an intro type and the 200 levels were taken after. Not that they were "harder" rather they built on 100 levels. A 200 level course would, in theory, have the expectation that you had some background knowledge- or perhaps even a prereq from the same dept at the 100 level. Also, think Fresh/Soph or 1st year/2nd year.
I think this is generally correct. My experience is this: 100=freshman 200=sophomore 300=junior 400=senior 500+=grad school
That would have been my assumption too, except I've noticed that there are some instances where the first course is a 200 level course. The political science class I teach is an example. There's no 100 level poly sci course. I had a similar situation as an undergrad with my communication courses. The first course, Public Speaking, was 200 level. Same thing when I took classical mythology. I was just wondering if there was some kind of rationale for the numbering. I know that some schools do the same thing for graduate courses. There's 500 level, 600, 700, 800, etc. -Matt
I'm sure that you're right. There are always exceptions. Sometimes the "exceptions" = 49%. I think that there are systems in place, maybe regional, maybe state and there are translations from one system to another. Some things translate well. Some not so well.
>> With my right hand raised, I swear to you that I was responsible for assigning course numbers to our culinary courses in 1991. I had no clue what that was (I went to culinary school, so had never taken a course with an alpha-numeric) and they came out of my arse. They made no sense, but I didn't know that because I was clueless. Of course, I was being supervised by a much wiser Dean who could have trumped me.... but he didn't and but after all of these years, they have never been changed. In an AAS/AOS I don't think anyone cares or that it matters. In an AA, I do think it matters for transfer purposes. I'm sure some schools limit the number of 100 level courses that can count toward your degree. Taking that into consideration would be important if a department had many courses to offer. If you think that poly sci or public speaking don't have pre-reqs, they could be taken as a 1st year student but for whatever reason are perhaps intended for the student who has already completed 24-46 hours of college level learning.
In many California CCs there are very few 200 level courses. Some are in the range 10-99 and many higher level 100 courses (e.g. 190) have several prerequisites. Transferring these courses to a 4 year school can be a hassle sometimes (although courses are coded for transfer to the two California state university systems).
Each state is different, but here is an explanation of the State of Florida course numbering system that may shed some light on the subject. http://www.registrar.ufl.edu/catalog/programs/courses/scns.html
