<p>I am thinking about attending the University of Montana-Western. I am very interested in their block system. I understands how it works, but is it any good. In addition, does a block system hold you back from taking a lot of courses?</p>
<p>The Block System will limit you to taking exactly one course at a time, and I don’t think you’d want to take more than that under the system.</p>
<p>D was interested in Colorado College, which uses the Block System, but ultimately decided it wouldn’t work for her. She wants to be pre-med, and she just couldn’t see doing things like Organic Chemistry in 3.5 weeks, or any lab heavy course for that matter. Maybe it works for some people, but it wouldn’t work for her. </p>
<p>I can see it being ideal for humanities and social science type courses where you have a lot of reading and discussion - science and math courses with a lot of problem sets and/or lab work, not so much. And I’ve done those type courses over a summer, where the schedule is compressed, and I really liked it, but 3.5 weeks seems extreme. YMMV.</p>
<p>Having only one course at a time creates flexibility for scheduling off-campus field work. This is an advantage for certain majors (e.g. life sciences, environmental science, or geology.) At Colorado College, biological/life sciences are among the most popular majors. </p>
<p>Block scheduling also creates more flexibility in scheduling study abroad programs. </p>
<p>At Colorado College (and at the other block plan colleges I assume), you’d be expected to take approximately the same number of courses to graduate as you would under a conventional semester or quarter system. It’s just that you take them in sequence, not in parallel. However, since you normally take one and only one course per block, there is less flexibility to take extra courses beyond the expected load.</p>
<p>I can see potential problem areas. In foreign languages it’s generally better to get some long term consistent exposure to a language to absorb it. Hard to do with block scheduling where you don’t get it again for a year. The other potential problem is if a student gets sick. Missing a week could be devastating in a class.</p>
<p>What is your intended major?</p>
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<p>Not necessarily. You could do an intensive summer program at a place like Middlebury, bracketed by one (or even two) blocks at either end, or a study abroad program spanning half of the spring, the summer, and half the fall. This would result in a sustained immersion experience that would be hard to schedule with as much flexibility elsewhere. Colorado College has 6 language houses to keep up the immersion to some degree. I believe they also offer adjunct “skill maintenance” courses to complement the regular block schedule.</p>
<p>But no doubt, the Block Plan is not for everyone.</p>