The First Day of a Short Summer

The summer semester of university classes is always an interesting experience as a student. I've only made use of this "extra semester" two or three times in my life. Previously, it was in the first couple of years of my twenties, when free time was plentiful and taking a class or two over the summer seemed like a good way to avoid having to find a job (boy, was I looking at the world the wrong way). Now, taking classes over the summer is an opportunity to not only take on more opportunities to learn, but also to (gasp!) move even more quickly towards a new career. Times sure have changed.

Today is the first day of my current load of summer classes, and there are two of them this time. Both are online, and fall under what UIS calls their Engaged Citizenship Common Experience requirement. I'll get into more details about the classes themselves in future posts.

What makes summer classes interesting? First and foremost, summer classes are compact. They tackle three to four credit hours in eight weeks instead of the usual 16 weeks that a fall or spring course would be allotted. For many people I know, this seems like academic suicide, but I enjoy the condensed and high-speed environment. I find that in longer courses that lack consistently interesting material, my interest tends to wane around week ten and I have to double my efforts to remain engaged with the class. For online classes, this is an even bigger issue, as the motivation to log-on and participate is more self-induced than when having to sit down in class and focus on the professor at a set time. If a course never gets to that tenth week, I find my engagement level to be much higher on average.

Secondly, every university I've seen limits summer course loads to ten credits or less. UIS limits a student to eight credit hours during the summer, and I think it's a wise decision. I'm currently taking seven credits, and I believe that it alows me to focus better. Compared to the regular semesters where I find myself taking 16 or 17 credits (on top of my full-time work schedule), the summer course limits allow students to knock out half a semester of credits in half the time without worrying about overloading themselves with four or five classes.

With the next eight weeks of classwork looking me square in the eye, it looks like it will be an exciting two months. I hope to keep up with regular posts here on various topics. Time to get started.