<p>is quarter system really hard?</p>
<p>no.</p>
<p>every form of semesters has its goods and bads</p>
<p>I don't see how it would be...</p>
<p>well, i have been through a quarter system(uci). i hate it with a passion. you have midtermslike every other week, or a paper due. not to mention three finals to study for instead of 2. material seems rushed. if you miss one class you can pretty much kiss your chances for an A good bye. btw, i never missed classed. your grade will most likeley come down to two tests: a midterm and a final, leaving no room for error. and you have the feeling of like you have no free time. </p>
<p>all in all, the quarter system can be a real pain in tthe A$$. one of the many reasons i actually left uci for USC.</p>
<p>some people try to justify the quarter system with arguments like if you dont like a prof. you get a class over with quick. trust me, its better if you had extra time to try to adjust and not feel rushed. or that you have the oppurtunity to take more classes that you are really interested in. trust me, its not worth the stress. </p>
<p>one advantage of the quarter system, you come out of it a changed person, if you can handle it. you get a new found appreciation of free time.</p>
<p>I enjoy the quarter system at UCLA.
It weeds out the slackers.</p>
<p>hey im a slacker ididint get "weeded out". but ya the quarter system tends to do that. all my friends dropped when things got hairy. thats not exactly a good thing though, and it just validates evrything i said. go trojans.</p>
<p>oh ya,</p>
<p>an example i would like to illuminate: i had an intermediate econ course that i was taking last yr. we had a midterm, final, and too very insignificant assignments. pretty typical stuff. i had a solid A (near 100%) going into our final. but i bombed it. i studied but not as much as i should have (i was having a rough quarter taking like 24 units) and also i was sitting next to a fat guy who smelled like ish (typical of uci students). his arm took up like half of tiny desk thingy (crapy auditorium lecture hall seating, again typical of uci). i just couldnt concentrate, damn it. the result: D on the test. the result if that: B- in the course. this is the lowent course score i have recieved, and seriously jepordized my transfer admission with USC. </p>
<p>damn you, quarter system. if i was in a semester system, i amy of had the chance to redeem myslef. but i didint. oh well, im off to greener pastures.</p>
<p>I'm at WPI right now, and have mixed feelings about the quarter system here. It's nice because its less material to learn for the final, and if you don't like the class, it will be over in 7 weeks. However, it goes really fast, and having different professors, especially for the calc 1-4 sequence, can be pretty confusing. Also, if you are sick an miss a few classes, you are way behind. Plus, although you only have 3 classes, you have them each 4 days a week, not including conferences/labs, etc. Also, the finals tend to have a lot more weight. For calc, I had 5 quizzes and then the final, which is 30% of the grade. For Spanish, the midterm was 20%, the final was 25%, and then there was 2 short projects. For chem, it was 3 tests and a final. So you really have to do well on the final to do well.</p>
<p>That wasnt the quarter systems fault. It was the big fat guys fault for sitting next to you. You should blame the fat guy.</p>
<p>I think they both have their advantages and disadvantages. The quarter system is more intense but you get to change classes often. The semester system drags on forever but it is easier to catch up if you need to.</p>
<p>I agree with shyboy. In my student days I did both semesters and quarters, and each seemed to have its advantages. I kind of liked the fact that you were never stuck in an awful class for a full semester in the quarter system. Overall, I wouldn't suggest that most students make the session length a major factor in comparing colleges.</p>
<p>Just my 2 cents--- I loved the quarter system when I was an undergrad. I took 4 classes per quarter, so over the course of a year, I was able to take many different classes in departments I might not have considered. I didn't feel I was wasting a course because it didn't fulfill a requirement. I didn't like starting in late September and ending school in mid-June, though, when everyoone on the semester system was finished with exams already.</p>
<p>the quarter system just flies by, and IMHO you end up spending so much time cramming for exams or rushing to turn in assignments that you don't have the chance to reflect on the material and <em>learn</em> it. You're just pushing facts into your head so you can spit them back out on a test, but at the end of the whirlwind that is the quarter system little has really sunk in.</p>
<p>Look at it this way. Today is Monday Oct. 18th. How far back does the start of the month seem? It only feels like a few days ago, but had you been enrolled in a quarter system and started classes on the 4th, this week many of your classes would be having midterms since its the 3rd week of the quarter. How much would you have really learned and absorbed by now? For most people they can only cram for those midterms, and the material which was scarcely digested to begin with quickly evaporates and is replaced by the things you need to learn for the <em>next</em> set of tests just around the corner. Add in the homework you're busy doing and a few papers you don't really have time to research and write carefully, and the quarter system is a recipe for shallow learning.</p>
<p>Its worth noting that the flagship of the UC system, Berkeley, switched away from a quarter system back to a semester system a few years back, and there are discussions at many of the other UC schools to revert.</p>
<p>so true. it takes a good school to make the quarter system happen right, like uchicago, northwestern, caltech, stanford, etc. i dont think most of the UC system is capable enough.</p>
<p>Quarter system makes it easier to schedule your curriculum; you can do co-ops/internships and/or double-major without delaying graduation more easily.</p>
<p>I really appreciated the quarter system at Cal Poly, SLO. I'm in semesters in grad school at UT Austin and I miss my quick and easy quarters. Semesters drag on forever.</p>
<p>I loved the quarter system at UCSD and now my grad school is on an even shorter/more frantic system than that (only 8 real working weeks in one term, and the school year is composed of three terms so essentially a quarter system). I think UCSD prepared me well to deal with it.</p>
<p>I'm on the quarter system at cal poly, and I really don't like it. It's VERY intense, and that doesn't fit my personality well at all. If you bomb a midterm, there's no way to get that grade up to the A-B range. Probably one of the only negatives of my experience here...</p>
<p>It's just not top schools that have the quarter system, ohio state also has it, and from what I hear, what you think of it is a personal thing. Some people like having time to redeem theselves and having more time, while others prefer the quick route, where it's paper, midterm, done.</p>