<p>Just an observation: I teach at a large, public university that converted some years ago from the quarter system to the semester system. We have many year-long courses in science/math (e.g., introductory physics, calculus, analysis, abstract algebra, several flavors of chemistry). Not claiming this would be true everywhere (!), but at my university, in practice students seemed to learn a bit more in these year-long courses under the quarter system. From the start of the course, students are able to stay on top of the material for 8 or 9 weeks, regardless of whether the course is a quarter or semester course. Then they tend to start flagging. (Not just my observation–my colleagues agree on this.) As noted by another poster, the breaks are real on the quarter system, including spring break. For some reason, that tends to “reset the clocks,” and permits the students to focus closely again. This may apply principally to subjects that are math-intensive.</p>
<p>From the science/math/engineering perspective, another advantage of the quarter system is that it offers an opportunity to take a wider variety of courses outside one’s major area. Also, for a student who is able to accelerate by independent study, it is easier to skip over a quarter’s worth of material than a semester’s worth (my comment above notwithstanding).</p>
<p>A real advantage of the semester system, on the other hand, is the opportunity for students to write more substantive papers, because they have longer to acquire the requisite background, read, and think about the topic. My colleagues in the humanities very strongly prefer semesters.</p>
<p>The 4-1-4 arrangements are interesting, and I could see students really liking those.</p>
<p>I think 4-1-4 is a block system. You take four courses before Winter break. The are courses offered during Winter break. You take four courses after Winter break.</p>
<p>One advantage that U of Chicago students mentioned was that they didn’t have any vacations in the middle of semesters, so every break was a real break. </p>
<p>I hear you on the late dates in June - we run into this with NY high school schedules - it was very hard to find a summer language class for my son that started late enough and first sessions of camps are often out of the question.</p>
<p>My S’s eighth block course his Junior year was held in Taipei. So, he got to spend nearly a month there taking one course. The RT airfare was included in the regular tuition. He asked the college and got an open-ended return ticket. After the course ended, he solo traveled to Hong Kong, Singapore, Cambodia and Malaysia before returning to the states for Summer.</p>
<p>He has spoken to friends whose colleges offered semesters abroad, but they took multi courses while abroad, as they would at the college in the US. Apparently, having only one course and then a free return ticket allowed my S to actually experience a lot more of the region than the students reported they did on a semester abroad.</p>
<p>My undergrad school had semesters and my first grad school had quarters (effectively trimesters) … I liked semesters better … however our unscientific survey of the 80 or so folks in my grad program was most people preferred whatever their undergrad school had as a system … and that it didn’t really make that much of a difference academically.</p>
<p>Overall, I did not like the quarter system when my oldest was in it, and swore my second child would not attend a school on the quarter system. But alas, she chose differently! (In her case, I think the Q system might work nicely because it better suits the athletic calendar for her sports.) My S had no issue with the faster pacing, and he was able to double-major. IMO, the worst disadvantage was finishing so late in June and starting so late in Sept. In addition to the aforementioned conflicts with internship timing and the start of permanent job training, my son found it impossible to find summer sublets in the city where he was interning since all of them corresponded to semester colleges’ summer breaks, ie. mid-May to mid August. However, to be fair, alumni from his school did run business internships at their firms which accommodated the quarter school calendar, so he didn’t fail to find opportunities anyway. But it was a royal pain.</p>