At most brick-and-mortar colleges and Universities in the USA
nowadays, how long are typical physics courses which are part
of programs which lead to degrees in physics? A quarter?
A semester? A trimester? A year? Or what? For example, the
first course in physics in a program leading to a BS with a
physics major?

Can one usually take such a course without having to be enrolled
in a program leading to a degree?

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

__________________
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"The other planets?
Well, they just happen to be there, but the point of rockets is to explore them!"
-- Kai Yeves

A lot of colleges let you take any course you want, regardless of your degree. There may be prerequisites for the courses (ex., Calculus generally requires you to have taken Algebra first). They get money from you per class, and the more extra classes you want to take for fun, the better for them.

As far as class lenght, depends on if said college is on quarters, semesters, etc. Around these parts most are still on the quarter system. Altho from what I understand many school across the country tend to do semesters. You can always get ahold of an advisor (not always and easy task but worth the effort). They can, well, advise you pretty well.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

"A long time ago, yet somehow in the future"

I've never heard of this "quarters" system. It doesn't involve flipping coins into beer glasses, does it?

I know in Canada, most schools operate on the semester system. The few that don't operate on a full-year system, but offer most of their courses as half credits. Classes are either 12 weeks (for a semester) or 24 (for a full year). It's usually the introductory classes that are 24 weeks long, with 2nd - 4th year classes being 12 weeks in length.

Anyone's allowed to register in a class in their given faculty, other than a thesis or project class (and maybe some labs), so long as they have the pre-requisite courses. Some universities may limit the courses you can take in other faculties, and some schools within the universities may not allow people not registered in that school to take courses (the school of fine arts, and the school of music at Queen's University were like this -- they either offered extremely limited enrolment, or only allowed enrolment during the summer months).

Is this similar to how it's usually done in the US? I guess it never really occurred to me that it would be different.

__________________
"The plan does not involve mayonaise."
"... I knew there was a catch."

You can't take the sky from me.

American schools from kindergarten to high school (which is our word for the last thing before going to a college/university) mostly divide the school year into quarters, which just means literally what the word means: one of four parts. So a quarter is a half of a semester. That's how often official grades are recorded, but it makes almost no difference in terms of schedules. Most classes span the whole school year, with just one spot (in a schedule of 6-8 classes) rotating from one class to another when one quarter or semester ends and the next begins.

But, like I said, that's before college. In American colleges/universities, quarters disappear completely and and classes are scheduled by semester only. Even if you go to the same place at the same time each day to study the same subject continuously for a whole school year, it's officially two independent classes, one for each semester. But the amount of education you need for a degree or have taken so far, and the weight of a given class in your grade average, is not measured in semesters. It's measured in "credit hours", which refers to how many hours are spent in class per week. Most classes are 3 credit hours, but they can be 2-5 (with 4 and 5 usually being for classes with both a 2-3-hour lecture component and a 1-2-hour lab component).

You might be allowed to take some classes without pursuing a degree, but each department will also have some classes, usually the more advanced ones, that you can't take unless you have declared that field as your "major" and/or you've taken certain prerequisite other classes first (or taken and passed the prerequisite's final exam to skip the prerequisite).

In colleges on the quarter system (at least the one I attended some thirty years ago), three quarters made a whole! (Sort of like .999... equals one?) Actually there was a fourth quarter but that was the summer session and not part of the regular school year. The first quarter ended just before the Christmas holiday which was in a way better than the semester system at that time which involved taking the winter break and then returning almost directly into Finals. Presumably credits for a quarter equated to 2/3 of those for a semsester.

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Cum catapultae proscribeantur tum soli proscripti catapultas habeant.

Trebuchet,

My experience is the same as yours: The year was divided into four
quarters, with the standard school year comprising three of them.
I have heard that the University has since switched to a semester
system to be in line with scheduling at other schools around the
nation. But I'm not sure what is standard.

My reason for asking is to get some idea how long a person will
be going to classes if he signs up for and attends only one course,
and completes it successfully. It needs to be a course in physics
which is approved for use in advancement toward a degree in
physics. The person who takes the course must be graded on
the standard scale.

To take this in another direction, does anyone have any ideas
how arrangements for payment of such a course could be made
so that I will pay the full cost if the person gets an acceptable
grade, but the person taking the course will pay if he does not
get an acceptable grade? A legal contract is all I can think of,
but I don't like that and I'm pretty sure the other person would
like it even less.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

__________________
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"The other planets?
Well, they just happen to be there, but the point of rockets is to explore them!"
-- Kai Yeves

Every school year I've had has begun in late August or early September and ended in May or early June, with a single semester taking between 4 and 5 months unless it's a summer "semester", for which the schedules are more compressed to fit in 3 months or 6 or 8 weeks. (The reason for summers off dates back to the once-common use of children for labor on their parents' farms in the summer.) If you want more precision than that before diving in, check the schedules of the college in question or ask someone who works there. The schedule and calendar for each semester are widely publicized at least a whole semester ahead of time, if not two or more.

I don't know of any college that doesn't require payment at the beginning of the semester rather than at the end, so what you want would seem to require that cause and effect happen in the wrong order (first the payment, then the determination of the grade). Is having the student pay at first, then you reimbursing later if the condition is met, not an option? The only other thing I can think of then would be an escrow service. People most often think of escrow in terms of mortgages, but all it really is is some third (or fourth) party that holds money until everything is settled between the original parties. It just so happens that mortgages are the usual circumstance in which escrow service is used. There are contracts involved, but an escrow service is very familiar with them and handles them routinely for the job, so it would have standard procedures to make the process as efficient as it can be for their own good. The catch is that they might require a certain minimum amount of money to be involved before they'll do it and the cost of a class might not be enough, or they might demand a fee that is unacceptably high.

Escrow, right. I knew that. Really.
Unacceptably high fee. Ah, yes. That's what I was afraid of.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

__________________
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"The other planets?
Well, they just happen to be there, but the point of rockets is to explore them!"
-- Kai Yeves

The college I attended for my bacheolor's was divided into quarters. Like most science classes the introduction class general lasted the whole year. (eg general biology, general chemistry, basic physics, biochemistry) I needed only one year of physics which entailed Physics 1A,1B,1C lecture and the corresponding laboratory class. Generally as you further your studies, the classes may only be 1 or 2 quarters for a specific topic. It really depends on your course of study.

edit: What avenue of physics you plan to study will greatly determine what your curriculum will be; especially when you start your upper division courses. This probably isn't terribly helpful but true.

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And all this science, I don't understand. It's just my job 5 days a week. Rocket Man (EJ/BT)