<p>So I just discovered the existance of half-term classes. How common is this, and what is their purpose? What is the average number of credits for these? (6?) What sort of classes can you take, half-term?</p>
<p>I only know of a few classes that are half-term:
1. Technically, 18.01A (since you only review single-variable calc for six weeks before moving on to multivariable)
2. ICE, the senior chemE capstone course</p>
<p>That's all I've ever heard of.</p>
<p>And PE classes, right? Seems like I read that somewhere...</p>
<p>You can get a PE credit over IAP in January..... :)</p>
<p>Yeah, PE classes only run for half a term.</p>
<p>They're not for credit, though, and they're administered through an entirely different [url=<a href="http://student.mit.edu/cgi-bin/sfprwpel_sel.sh%5Dsystem%5B/url">http://student.mit.edu/cgi-bin/sfprwpel_sel.sh]system[/url</a>] from academic classes... which is to say also, in case anybody was unsure, you can take PE classes freshman year without having any problems with the freshman credit limit.</p>
<p>Some of the half-term classes I saw were in economics, too. My question is more what are they there for/why would you want to take a half-term class?</p>
<p>Oh, I see.</p>
<p>Well, the major reason that there are a few classes that only meet for half a term is that it's just another way (albeit a rare way) to schedule all the necessary material. Instead of having students take one 12-unit class, they break it up into two successive 6-unit classes. (Of course, this begs the question: how is that any different from just consolidating all the course material into one 12-unit class? This I do not know.)</p>
<p>All of those econ classes you mentioned are grad classes (see the H with a hat in the subject listing?), so it's probably some weirdness of the MIT econ grad program.</p>
<p>More relevantly, I forgot about the godawful mess that is the BE department's thermo class -- the first half of the class is the same as the chem department's thermo class, 5.60, so BE students take the first half of the course with the chem/bio students, then move to a different classroom for the second half.</p>
<p>The wrinkle is in the fact that they can, if they wish, take only the chem department's version (registering under 20.110), take only the chem-then-BE version (20.111), or take one of the above with the second half of the other (20.110 or 20.111 plus either 20.114 or 20.112). It was really confusing last year, and the registrar's office couldn't get it straight and kept denying website access to members of the course... it was kind of a trainwreck.</p>