After almost 10 weeks of Fall Semester, half-semester classes have wrapped up and second-half classes have commenced. But complications from this new course setup have some students giving mixed reviews.
Keri Ruzicka, a third-year in marketing, had a half-semester class this summer and has two more this semester. She said the shortened classes are not like the normal ones she is used to.
“The one I took over the summer didn’t even feel like a class because it went by so fast,” Ruzicka said. “The second one was a public speaking one, so that was OK pace-wise, but they just go by so fast that it’s just so much information at once. It was sort of hard to do it all, I guess.”
Ruzicka also said she had some scheduling issues going into the semester.
“I got wait-listed for a lot of my classes and unfortunately my adviser was on maternity leave, so they just kept handing me off to different people and I wasn’t getting any of my problems solved,” Ruzicka said. She didn’t get into her second half-semester class until the day it started.
However, other students said they have noticed some benefits to these faster classes.
“I like them. It was quick pace,” said Al Endrai, a fourth-year in agricultural business, who also said the course material was communicated the same in his half-semester class as his full-semester classes. He took one half-semester class that recently ended, and said the class material was the same just more condensed.
Miranda Gloyd, a third-year in nursing, said she enjoyed her first half-semester class. Gloyd was registered for a class that recently ended, and has also started a new half-semester class that will continue through the rest of the term.
“I like the fact that they are really short and instead of having two classes for a long period of time, you have that one class you can focus on for that short period of time,” Gloyd said. “There is more of a work load in (a half-semester class), but I kind of like it … was just that one class at a time and not two classes I had to focus on.”
Textbooks are another added expense for half-semester classes. With full-semester classes, students typically only need one set of books per class. Half-semester classes, however, require two separate sets of textbooks in the same semester term. Ruzicka said she is not pleased with her current textbook situation.
“I actually got a book recently, I was going to try and get it from someone else but I couldn’t and it was another $100 with shipping and everything,” Ruzicka said. “It is sort of ridiculous that it is another $100 for a seven-week class when I spent less on the book that lasts (16 weeks).”
But Gloyd said even though you are paying for textbooks for classes that have been condensed or combined, you would still need to buy them if they were full-semester classes.
“Even if you have those two classes for a full semester, you would still have to buy the same amount of books,” Gloyd said.