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Class schedules (USA): Summer vs. Fall/Spring +breaks
Druk
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TLDR: Why are Summer classes scheduled so differently than Fall/Spring classes?
Ugh, finals. Going through 4 months of coursework, notes, etc., and hoping the parts you study the most are the most important parts of the final exam, if even there at all. On top of that, you're doing this for multiple topics at the same time, possibly with back-to-back exams with little/no break in between.
Is this really the best system for education, spreading out 3-5 hours a week per class over 4 months?
On the other hand, the Summer class schedule that I have coming up over the next couple months is quite a bit different. Anywhere from 6-10 hours a week just for one class which is completed in a single month. This seems a lot more focused, which I think would be a far more efficient way to learn.
So does anyone know why there exists such a big difference between the Summer schedule and the Fall/Spring schedule?
And is one type better for education than the other? Which would you prefer?
EDIT:
The discussion shifted a bit toward "Should we have Summer breaks? Y/N", which is fine by me and still somewhat relevant, made more so by me mentioning it here & in the title.
Ugh, finals. Going through 4 months of coursework, notes, etc., and hoping the parts you study the most are the most important parts of the final exam, if even there at all. On top of that, you're doing this for multiple topics at the same time, possibly with back-to-back exams with little/no break in between.
Is this really the best system for education, spreading out 3-5 hours a week per class over 4 months?
On the other hand, the Summer class schedule that I have coming up over the next couple months is quite a bit different. Anywhere from 6-10 hours a week just for one class which is completed in a single month. This seems a lot more focused, which I think would be a far more efficient way to learn.
So does anyone know why there exists such a big difference between the Summer schedule and the Fall/Spring schedule?
And is one type better for education than the other? Which would you prefer?
EDIT:
The discussion shifted a bit toward "Should we have Summer breaks? Y/N", which is fine by me and still somewhat relevant, made more so by me mentioning it here & in the title.
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Also with 10 hours/week in the classroom, you'll have to put in 3 weeks' worth of normal out-of-classroom time (studying, homework, etc) for every week of your summer term.
If we make the same set of assumptions with classes that are running 10 hours a week for a month then you either limit yourself to one class a month or 4 classes in a 4 month period.
So, they end up at the same place in those terms, but what if the second half of one of those classes relies on material you learn in the first half of another? Either you have a month where it goes unused in between, or you have a case where you finish learning it and start applying it nearly immediately (ok, that's an ideal case, but I think its close enough).
You sit in class for five weeks, take midterms and a long weekend, sit in class another five weeks, and have two weeks for finals, then take two weeks off. Rinse and repeat, with a full break for essentially most of actual Summer (early-mid July to late September). You're off two weeks around Xmas/New Years, and two more weeks around Easter, with a half week off around Thanksgiving, Valentine's, and Labor Day.
And you're able to take four classes every semester, which adds up to 36 hours a year, which isn't much more than most schools require you to take if you want that degree in 4 years, anyway.
It is needed because it exists, and is a cornerstone of young life in America. Many kids have summer activities they partake in during that break. It's likely a holdover from a time when it was just too hot to have the kids couped up trying to learn, or when they were needed to help on the farm, I have no idea. The problem now is that it exists, and radical changes like just eliminating it altogether just aren't going to happen overnight. That's why I suggest a 3 semester system, it narrows down the summer off-session, without eliminating it completely, and you can justify by saying that it helps realign the school year with the concept of a 4-year degree (although I think that system should be revisited, as well, and heartily endorse the community college/Associate's degree system).
That's what I was talking about. We've switched to 3 semesters, each 15 weeks long. It's very sensible as there's no reason not to spread classes around the year equally. After all the buildings are there year round.
Summer courses at the community college here are two weeks shorter, but each class is about an hour longer so you usually end up spending more time in class. At the college I'm at now I'm in a program (called EDP) that means, for class meetings, I travel somewhere once a month for an 8 hour class. There's a ton of homework in-between, though, so it's not like there's a lack of work.
As for the OP, condensed classes like you're talking about often aren't terribly great. I took what they call a Winterim this year (Consumer Behavior) condensed into a similar four 8 hour classes, but they were two weekends. The workload between classes was extremely tough and, while a lot of information gets absorbed, 8 hours is a long fucking time to sit in a classroom. Eventually your brain needs to rest and just doesn't absorb anything else.
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We need a culture shift, where "being a fulltime student" means being enrolled fulltime, every semester, not just spring and fall. To help facilitate this, I propose adjusting the schedule so that you have three semesters, and still have a small summer break as well. This makes the idea more palatable, because it's less weird. And I'm proposing making the same change at the high school level, to help it become a norm. Then, you can phase out that break by adding a week or two (over time) to the length of each semester. Maybe start by giving a one-week break after midterms, then add a week to the length of each semester, and so on, until you're actually in school all year long, and each academic year flows into the next.
Am I making sense yet?
Flexibility.. I like it.
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1) The chance to spend some time with your family, especially if you're in school in another state
2) The chance to have some time off. Working people can save up vacation. Students get what break time the school allows and it is incredibly difficult to get time off when school is in session.
3) The chance to save up some money. It's difficult to spend a lot of time working if you're an actual full-time student (at least in the latter half of your college years).
4) The chance to gain valuable work experience in internships. It's not possible to work full-time and go to school full-time and pay the proper amount of attention to both of them. And given that a good internship is possibly the most valuable thing you can have when looking for a job coming out of college, losing it would be a pretty big problem.
Sure, lots of people just veg out all summer and do nothing in particular. But sometimes I wish I still had that option. The real world hits hard enough as it is, does it need to hit sooner too?
And eliminating breaks all together is just crazy.
1) You still have a summer break. Just a shorter one (for now, anyway)
2) You get a two week break between fall/spring, and spring/summer, and a long weekend break after midterms.
3) Part of the change is that the 12-hour semester becomes the norm again. You're taking 3 semesters of 12 hours, instead of 2 semesters of 15-16 and 1 of 3-8. As a result, you should have more time outside of class to spend doing things not immediately school related (like work part-time, or have a social life).
4) This is legitimate, but I think a system could be designed whereby you get a semester here or there later in your college career to do an internship. In much the same fashion as many schools now allow high school students with exceptional grades to attend college during their senior year of high school.
Also, I think the issue of the real world hitting is symptomatic of the summer break system. If you're already used to working year-round, the idea is easier to adjust to. Not to mention, studies show (I have no links readily available) that students forget more during their summer breaks, and have to spend time in the fall relearning things they'd forgotten over the previous 2-3 months, which is less time spent learning new things.
College isn't normal work. If you try to hammer through a BS with no breaks what so ever, I can guarantee you the failure rate is going to go through the hoof.
Perhaps, but if we reinvigorate the community college / associate degree system, people will be more likely to go that route, first, then decide if they're ready to jump into a career, or go for a better degree. If nothing else, that can act as a stepping stone / ramp up to the level of the university programs, which won't have to be watered down as a result.
Why? If there's going to be X amount of "break time" over the course of the academic calendar, I don't really see the problem with putting it in a big block over the summer months. Not all education happens in the classroom.
I spent my summers through high school and undergrad working full time. It was valuable experience that I probably wouldn't have been able to get if I'd been taking classes 15-20 hours a week during those months.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
There are however some issues, top 3 that I can think of off the top of my head:
1. Tuition per year would be increased significantly and many students already need to work full time or more during the summer to meet their financial needs. Granted I would hope that this would result in students not needing four years for a degree and through efficiencies on some fees actually end up reducing student's costs to go to school as a total price. In order to not cut out large swaths of the population from being able to go to school, financial assistance for students would need to be hugely overhauled (it kind of needs to be already). Even if overhauled it would still probably suck and going to school year round would provide less of a bumper for students to make up for its short falls.
2. Student mental health would probably become a larger issue than it already is. Students break, some very badly, and waiting for the summer and getting a long time to refresh is all that gets a fair number of them through their degrees. A couple weeks off between semesters probably isn't going to cut it for many, especially the ones who are coming from somewhere that isn't driving distance.
3. You need alot more qualified professors and I'm not sure where they are going to come from. Most I've met that do research already teach the max number of sections they can without compromising their research (they still usually complain about how little time they have). At the very least to accomplish this there would have to be something done to get alot more people into grad schools and then something to get them to go on to do PhDs.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that while I don't think it would be impossible to switch to a 3 semester system, its actually a very complex issue that will require huge amounts of planning and research on how to address some issues that schools themselves might not even have the ability to influence.
I'm not sure about the cost of tuition but I pay for a large portion of mine up in Canada via the money I save during the summer while working. It helps everyone to keep students out of debt, no?
Edit: Also I'm not really sure what the 'Its called life' bit is about, I work two jobs and volunteer in the summer so I never really have what would strictly be called a break besides christmas.
I am just saying that have an equal amount of school over the whole year, just less time off in the summer. Can you work during the rest of the year or are the hours too difficult to match to a school schedule?
While I'm sure the well connected of us could but it makes people in general look much more unemployable when you're trying to find work for a few weeks here and a few weeks there instead of one big block of time.
Most interesting use of the summer break I can think of that was very common at my school was leaving the country to visit family, staying there for weeks.
Whether or not they had any fun depends on how poor the country they were visiting was.
I don't understand why people are getting stressed out I guess. Having worked 90 hour work weeks before, yeah it sucks but you get used to it.
It was a lot of drudging through unsatisfying and/or difficult classes to impress adcoms.
Also summer really is one of the few things that makes me able to rough through finals. I am in finals week now and all I have had is paper after paper after paper and I haven't even begun studying for my finals yet. I take an hour or two break everyday outside of that all I am doing is research or writing. It's stressful and the only way I'm getting through it is looking at the calender marked the 17th and knowing that when that rolls around I get a break from school a week off and then begin work that is significantly less stressful.
It's not so much stressful because of the amount of work that has to be done. It's stressful because it is mentally exhausting and so much of the final grade hangs on these last few weeks. I can work my job every day and work another job on the side without getting stressed out. But when you know your final grade depends on you getting the research and proving your points strongly it gets a bit rough.
A case where I don't feel bad about my low expectations. I wasn't crushed! Felt bad for some peers though
We need to start thinking about eliminating summer in K-12. I don't remember about Europe specifically, but iirc the rest of the world basically goes to school year-round.
Are you sure because at a glance it seems like most of the world uses much the same system with a fairly long summer vacation. That being said I am personally on board with the idea of going to three terms a year instead of two.