Course load weekly hours
Add up the real weekly cost of your timetable: class contact hours plus your own study hours for every course. Three courses with 10 contact hours and 13 study hours come to 23 hours a week. Free in your browser.
- Free
- Runs in your browser
- No sign-up
- Your data stays on your device
Run — free
Knowing how many credits you carry is not the same as knowing how many hours the week will actually cost. Contact time on the timetable is only half the story; labs, lectures, and discussion sections sit next to reading, problem sets, and exam prep that never appear on the schedule grid. This course load weekly hours calculator accepts every enrolled course with its weekly class contact hours and your estimated study hours, then sums both streams so you see total weekly academic commitment in one number. Advisors use it before approving an overloaded term. Students use it when a part-time job already claims evenings.
How contact hours and study hours become total weekly load
For each enrolled course you provide two non-negative weekly figures. Contact hours are the scheduled face-to-face or synchronous meeting time—lectures, labs, seminars, and required recitations as they appear on the timetable. Study hours are your honest estimate of out-of-class work for that course: reading, problem sets, lab reports, language practice, and exam preparation.
The engine adds those two values for every row to produce that course’s weekly hours, then sums contact across all courses, study across all courses, and finally adds those two totals into total weekly academic hours. Three lecture courses at three contact hours and six study hours each contribute nine contact hours, eighteen study hours, and twenty-seven total weekly hours before you even count a four-hour lab.
The calculator does not invent difficulty weights or credit multipliers; it trusts the hours you enter so advisors and students can debate the estimates without fighting hidden formulas.
Where a course-load weekly hours calculator earns its keep
Academic advisors open a course load weekly hours calculator when a student proposes five classes plus work shifts, so the conversation starts from combined contact and study hours rather than credit count alone. Orientation programs and first-year experience courses embed the same math so new students see that three lectures and two labs can already claim thirty or more academic hours before commuting. Tutoring centers and success coaches adjust study-hour estimates course by course when a STEM lab needs more outside time than a survey elective.
Failed validation does not consume balance.
What you can do with it
Advising before overload approval
Advisors enter each proposed course with contact and study hours so students see total weekly academic time before adding another class or shift.
Orientation and term planners
Orientation tools convert a typical multi-course schedule into contact, study, and combined weekly totals students can calendar against work and life.
LMS registration load banners
Study apps and LMS plugins call the same contract when showing estimated weekly academic hours next to the course cart.
FAQ
What is the difference between contact hours and study hours?
Contact hours are scheduled class or lab meeting time. Study hours are estimated out-of-class work. Both are weekly figures; total weekly hours is their sum per course and across the load.
How is this different from a study-hours-per-credit calculator?
A per-credit tool estimates only out-of-class study from credits times a ratio. This calculator requires explicit contact and study hours per course and reports the combined weekly academic commitment.
What should I count as study hours?
Your honest estimate of out-of-class work for each course: reading, problem sets, lab reports, language practice and exam preparation. Contact hours are only the scheduled lectures, labs, seminars and recitations.
Does the calculator weight courses by credits or difficulty?
No. It adds exactly the hours you enter, with no hidden difficulty weights or credit multipliers. If a lab needs more outside time than an elective, raise its study hours yourself.
How many courses can I add at once?
Between 1 and 40 courses. A row may have zero contact hours or zero study hours, but not both, so empty rows cannot pad the list.
Related tools
For developers — API access
Everything on this page is available programmatically. This section is for teams who want to wire it into their own systems; everyone else can just use the tool above.
API endpoint
Prefer to automate it? One authenticated POST creates the task; the result comes back by webhook or a signed link. The same capability also runs here on the web, by email and from Telegram — and soon from our app too.
Call it from your stack
curl -X POST https://api.kit.forhosting.com/edu/course-load-hours \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $KIT_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"courses":[{"name":"Calculus I","contact_hours":3,"study_hours":6},{"name":"Chemistry Lab","contact_hours":4,"study_hours":3},{"name":"English Composition","contact_hours":3,"study_hours":4}]}'const res = await fetch("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/edu/course-load-hours", {
method: "POST",
headers: {
"Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.KIT_KEY}`,
"Content-Type": "application/json"
},
body: JSON.stringify({
"courses": [
{
"name": "Calculus I",
"contact_hours": 3,
"study_hours": 6
},
{
"name": "Chemistry Lab",
"contact_hours": 4,
"study_hours": 3
},
{
"name": "English Composition",
"contact_hours": 3,
"study_hours": 4
}
]
})
});
const { task_id } = await res.json();import os, requests
res = requests.post(
"https://api.kit.forhosting.com/edu/course-load-hours",
headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['KIT_KEY']}"},
json={
"courses": [
{
"name": "Calculus I",
"contact_hours": 3,
"study_hours": 6
},
{
"name": "Chemistry Lab",
"contact_hours": 4,
"study_hours": 3
},
{
"name": "English Composition",
"contact_hours": 3,
"study_hours": 4
}
]
},
)
task_id = res.json()["task_id"]<?php
$res = file_get_contents("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/edu/course-load-hours", false, stream_context_create([
"http" => [
"method" => "POST",
"header" => "Authorization: Bearer " . getenv("KIT_KEY") . "\r\nContent-Type: application/json",
"content" => '{"courses":[{"name":"Calculus I","contact_hours":3,"study_hours":6},{"name":"Chemistry Lab","contact_hours":4,"study_hours":3},{"name":"English Composition","contact_hours":3,"study_hours":4}]}',
],
]));
$task = json_decode($res, true);body := bytes.NewBufferString(`{"courses":[{"name":"Calculus I","contact_hours":3,"study_hours":6},{"name":"Chemistry Lab","contact_hours":4,"study_hours":3},{"name":"English Composition","contact_hours":3,"study_hours":4}]}`)
req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST", "https://api.kit.forhosting.com/edu/course-load-hours", body)
req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer "+os.Getenv("KIT_KEY"))
req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)Example request
{
"courses": [
{
"name": "Calculus I",
"contact_hours": 3,
"study_hours": 6
},
{
"name": "Chemistry Lab",
"contact_hours": 4,
"study_hours": 3
},
{
"name": "English Composition",
"contact_hours": 3,
"study_hours": 4
}
]
}Example response
{
"task_id": "tsk_a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4e5f6",
"type": "edu.course_load_hours",
"status": "queued",
"_links": {
"result": "/tasks/tsk_…/result"
}
}The API is asynchronous: the call returns a task_id immediately and the result arrives by webhook. Polling is capped at 1 req/s per task.
Pricing
Published price — no tokens, no invented credits. A failed task is never charged.
Errors
| HTTP | Code | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
401 | unauthorized | Missing or invalid API key. |
402 | insufficient_balance | Your balance doesn't cover the task price. |
404 | unknown_type | That task type doesn't exist. |
429 | rate_limited | Too many requests. Use the webhook instead of polling. |
Technical notes
Input contract, response fields, and validation errors
An optional name string labels the course in the breakdown when you want human-readable output for advising notes or PDF exports. Optional name is included on a row only when you supplied it; omitted optional fields never appear as null. POST a JSON body with one required array and one optional rounding knob. courses must be a non-empty list of one to forty objects. Each object requires contact_hours and study_hours as finite numbers greater than or equal to zero, and the sum of those two values on that row must be strictly greater than zero so empty zero-zero rows cannot pad the list. Aliases enrolled, items, and schedule are accepted for the array so form builders can keep familiar field names. decimals is an optional integer from zero to six that controls half-up rounding of hour fields; the default is two. On success the body returns course_count, total_contact_hours, total_study_hours, total_weekly_hours, a courses array echoing each row with weekly_hours equal to contact plus study, and a formula string restating the identities. Missing courses, a non-array value, an empty list, more than forty rows, missing hour fields, non-finite numbers, negative hours, a zero-plus-zero row, or decimals outside zero through six fail with invalid_input naming the problem. Those validation failures are not billed. Pair the totals with your own calendar if you need day-by-day blocks; this endpoint returns weekly aggregates only.
Where a course-load weekly hours calculator earns its keep
Learning management systems and registration carts call the API to show a load banner that matches the free browser path byte-for-byte on the pure module.
Technical questions
How do I calculate total weekly academic hours from my courses?
Send a courses array where each row has contact_hours and study_hours. The API returns total_contact_hours, total_study_hours, and total_weekly_hours as their sum across all rows.
What happens if a course has zero contact and zero study hours?
The task fails with invalid_input. Each course row must have contact_hours + study_hours greater than zero; invalid input is not billed.
What does the course load weekly hours calculator cost?
The browser tool is free. API requests use prepaid KIT balance at $0.002 per successful call; invalid input is not billed.