Study Time and Unit Information

All of our courses are designed to be very flexible so that they can be molded around individual study time frames and course/class requirements.

The simplest way to figure study time is to add up all the chapters and divide by the number of weeks the student has available to study the course, which will let you know how many chapters the student needs to cover per week.

Another time factor is dependent on how you choose to use the Bluestocking study guides. The study guides include various types of questions, ranging from comprehension questions (true/false, short answer, and fill-in-the-blank questions), as well as research and essay assignments (the research and essay assignments will generally take much longer to complete than the comprehension questions).

So, if you need to complete a course in one semester, you probably could. If you were to do this, you might choose to forgo the more in-depth study guide questions (research, essay, etc.) and focus solely on the actual reading of the books and the study guide comprehension questions (i.e. true/false, short answer, fill-in-the-blank questions). You could also select, time permitting, a few of the longer assignments from the study guides and condense them to fit a one-semester time-frame. However, if you want to devote more time to the study guides’ research questions, essay assignments, discussions, etc., then you’d probably be looking at more than one semester.

Bottom line, the course is designed to be flexible so that you can tailor the course of study to the time frame available.

Finally, if you need to determine the number of course credits/units, please read the following information regarding Carnegie Units.

To help find a consistent measurement, we will base our discussion on the Carnegie Unit. In essence, a Carnegie Unit is a measure of time – study time. Originally, one Carnegie Unit equaled 120 hours, which would equal one school year (two semesters). Or, about 50 minutes of study time per day, for five days a week, for two semesters. This said, if your educational requirements state that a student needs “two units of economics” you might want to check with your school to determine if their units are equivalent to Carnegie Units.

The Bluestocking Guides have been designed to offer a student a wide range of study time options, and thus units credited. For example, if you only needed a quarter of a Carnegie Unit for Economics, you could perhaps read Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? and answer only the multiple choice, true/false, and short answer questions presented in A Bluestocking Guide: Economics. However, if you require one full Carnegie Unit in economics, then you would probably need to read Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?, The Money Mystery: The Hidden Force Affecting Your Career, Business and Investments and The Clipper Ship Strategy: For Success in Your Career, Business, and Investments, as well as their corresponding Bluestocking Guides. Then, you would need to determine how much time you would need to devote to the more in-depth assignments presented in the Bluestocking Guides. Some of the research questions and assignments presented in the Bluestocking Guides can be quite extensive and can take many hours to complete, therefore, if you are looking to fulfill more hours to meet your unit requirements, you would simply include more of the essay, research and application assignments in the Bluestocking Guides.

Our suggestion is to look through the Bluestocking Guides once you have them, and select the number of assignments you think you’ll need in order to meet your hour/unit/credit requirements. If, after a few chapters, you find that the assignments are taking more or less time than you anticipated, simply adjust the remaining assignments.

Lastly, within each product’s online description, you will find a list of courses that we believe our books will complement. We have also put together Curriculum Packages that include titles that satisfy or complement particular courses.