Q: When is dining out just like school?
A: When it’s a four course meal!

Explanation: When you go to a restaurant, you are dining out.  Dining out, eating out, and going to a restaurant for a meal all mean the same thing.  When you say that you are dining out, it probably means that you are going to a restaurant with servers who take your order and bring you your food; dining out is more formal than going to a fast-food restaurant.

Often, restaurants will offer meals with multiple courses.  In dining, a course means a type of food that is served at one time.  Typical courses are appetizers, salad, the main dish, and dessert.  There can be lots and lots of courses in a meal. (This is why sometimes there are many forks on the table at a really fancy restaurant!)

In school, a course is unit that may last a semester, a year, or another length of time.  You might have a year-long history course or a semester-long philosophy course.  Frequently, college students take four courses in a semester, although they can take more or fewer.

This joke is funny because it plays with two meanings of the word course: A meal course and a school course.  Of course there are other courses such as a golf course and the course of a river (its path).

Here is a river changing its course-