Taking classes, without credits

Graduate student Gabriel Swift attends a four-credit-hour "The Book in the Renaissance" course Tuesdays and Thursdays, doing readings and participating in class discussions.\nBut the SLIS major doesn't have to complete assignments.\nHe doesn't have to take exams.\nAnd he doesn't have to pay thousands of dollars in credit hour fees.\nSince the course doesn't count toward his degree program but rather compliments his studies, Swift is auditing the class this semester.\nHe's one of only a handful of students at IU-Bloomington who take courses without credit.\nSome of them are official class audits, arranged with faculty permission through the registrar's office for a $25 per semester fee. In the fall, 44 students were enrolled at IU only as auditors, while 114 students were enrolled in some classes and audited others.\nOther audits, like Swift's, are informal, arranged with professors for a class session, a week or a semester.\nBut why would a student take a course for no credit?\nSome are interested in courses outside of their areas of study or have been out of school for a while and want to get a feel for what it's like. Others are older residents who want to continue to learn, but don't need credits. Still others audit to get a feel for a potential major or prepare for a particularly difficult course.\nThere are audit students in almost every school, but they're more common in law, foreign language and computer science classes.\nHistory adviser Jim Basore said most students working toward a degree want their credits to count. But if students want to learn the material on their own or for fun, faculty will usually allow an audit.\nWhen librarian Ann Bristow attended the University of Michigan, she used audits to choose her courses.\n"It was a way of interviewing faculty members to see if I liked them and to see if I wanted to take a course," said Bristow, director of the Main Library reference department. "Sometimes I spent more effort on classes I audited than the ones I took."\nIn one case, Bristow audited a graduate level course she wasn't eligible to enroll in. In another, she liked a creative writing instructor, but didn't want to submit her own work.\nAt IU, traditional undergraduate students rarely audit classes, and undergraduate sociology adviser MaryLou Kennedy Hosek doesn't recommend it.\nStudents often sit in classes and attend class with friends, but in her 10 years as an adviser, Hosek said she has been contacted about auditing once or twice.\n"For most of my students, I'm trying to get them graduated," she said.