Does it seem to be a trend that universities/colleges are moving toward semesters

[74Heaven]

Just wondering if I am correctly perceiving a trend or if in fact, the opposite is happening.

 

Back in the day (1980s), I think many "semester" colleges were changing to quarters? Or so I thought?

 

Thanks!!!

lisa

[Chris in VA]

Idk, but Ohio State used to be on what they called quarters--3 "periods" a year.

Now they are changing to semesters. I think the change will occur next year.

We used to take classes 5 days a week or 3 days a week for 12 weeks, plus exam week at the end of each quarter. It was nice, because you could be done with the quarter when breaks happened--done with the first at Christmas break, done with the second before Spring Break.

[Nicole M]

One trend with schools on quarters, which I think is encouraging, is that they are moving toward starting a little earlier in the year and shutting down the campus between Thanksgiving and the first week of January. For schools in northern climates, like Lawrence in Wisconsin, this saves a great deal of energy to heat buildings, and it reduces the cost to families, flying their children home for Thanksgiving then back for a few weeks, then home again for Christmas. It also means that students are home long enough to get a job over the holidays. (Turns out, though, that the Lawrence students were not happy with this change, because all their friends were not home, too. Heh.)

 

So I don't know about shifts, but the college where I work would be hard pressed to change the schedule -- we're on semesters. My colleagues and I like to joke about "movement at the rate of the institution," which is sorta like glacial change.

Edited April 25, 2010 by Nicole M
spelling errors

[creekland]

Va Tech changed from quarters to semesters back when I was there in the 80's. I'm pretty sure they are still on semesters. I'm not sure which I liked better. They both had their pros and cons.

[K-FL]

Va Tech changed from quarters to semesters back when I was there in the 80's. I'm pretty sure they are still on semesters. I'm not sure which I liked better. They both had their pros and cons.

 

U of Tenn-Knoxville changed from quarters to semesters just after I graduated in 1983. Before then the UT system hadn't been the same & so the main campus changed to be like the rest.

[mcconnellboys]

Yeah, I thought that back when UT changed, most other schools in the country were already on a semester system. Am I wrong about that? I'm surprised to hear that there are any schools left on a quarter system.

 

I do have to say, though, I that I much preferred it to semesters!

[TravelingChris]

Dh and I had quarters in college- University of Chicago which still does that. We thought it was much better. For indepth, long classes like Calculus or Chemistry, there really wasn't much difference since they were year long classes at any school. BUt what really helped was having classes that fit into a quarter but might have been too skimpy for a semester. Like I took some wonderful literature and history classes that fit into that pattern. For example, I took a class entitled the Faust theme in Literature. Well there are a number of Faustian works but really just enough for a quarter class, not a full semester. My dh was able to get a lot more physics in than his counterparts in semester schools because they tended to do a lot of texts in one quarter versus another school in one semester. It was very intense but I got a very good education.

 

None of the schools either of my older two looked at or are looking at have quarters. Some of the ones dd is looking at have a short term either in Jan or in May. I like that idea too.

 

Oh and it was much harder to goof off in a quarter class. The midterms came so quickly and you just didn't have much of a chance to forget things. I think in my ds case, he would have done much better at a quarter school since he couldn't get so far behind. I think with dd who is used to semester both in online classes, college classes and in homeschool co-ops and who is a lot more dedicated student, I think the transition to college will be a lot smoother.

[Laura in CA]

Stanford has the quarter system, and has since at least the early 1980s; Caltech also is on a quarter system (except they call them 'terms' :D).

In 1966 all campuses of the University of California changed to quarters, but UC Berkeley (alone) changed back to semesters in 1983 (to save money, IIRC). Most (but not all) of the 20+ Cal State universities are on the semester system.

 

As someone said above, quarters have some advantages. I went to school under both systems and much preferred quarters! Semesters are long :001_smile:.

 

~Laura

 

P.S. I got interested in this question and googled it -- here is a list of universities on the quarter system -- probably not exhaustive (& doesn't have Caltech), but ... it's not a long list!

Edited April 25, 2010 by Laura in CA