<p>Feel free to post any advise, thoughts or comments regarding the 2009-2010 academic year.</p>
<p>The change from semester system to the quarter system was not too difficult. If any prospective student is worrying about the change I can tell you that there is nothing to fear--this is from experience. However, the reading load did surprise me; I had about 500+ pages on average per week in mandatory reading, which was more than what I was used too, and I had to spend most of my time every day just reading.</p>
<p>I sorta thinik that the quarter system was implemented to make it a bit easier for students to do well - This seems odd at first because a quarter system means more tests than that of a semester system, but there’s a good reasoning. If a student fails a test at a semester system, that test accounts for half of the grade for a year long course. But in a quarter system, it would only count for a third of the grade. So one would essentially have more chances to do well - three times instead of two</p>
<p>It also decreases the amount of studying that a student has to do for each final, since the information learned in a previous course in the same series usually isn’t included.</p>
<p>I was worried about the quarter system being too fast… but it’s not bad at all. I like it. (:</p>
<p>I would actually not be fit for the semester system because… most finals are cumulative… and my brain doesn’t retain information very well… semester just means more time for me to forget things.</p>
<p>whiteclock; I think the number of tests is really up to the professor. There are some classes with only two tests in the quarter system. It’s possible that the semester system has more than just two tests… the professor might give more tests out to make sure his/her students are keeping up. I mean, IMO, 15 weeks is pretty long.</p>