<p>What do you think of the quarter system at SCU?</p>
<p>This is how my daughter assessed the quarter system at SCU. She is a current student, having transferred from a college on the semester system.</p>
<p>The work itself isn’t harder because of a quarter system. However, the pace picks up quickly. It isn’t unusual by week 2 to be working on papers and start having tests. Definitely by week 3 things are humming. The busy pace tends to keep up all quarter. In contrast, she found in the semester system it seemed like the first 3 weeks were almost like warm-up to the real work of the semester.</p>
<p>It is hard if one falls behind in a quarter system… there is no buffer to really catch up like there can be in a semester system.</p>
<p>A few good things about the quarter system is that a student isn’t stuck very long in a class he/she doesn’t like, a student can try out more subjects in a year, and the year itself seems to fly by a lot faster.</p>
<p>All in all, the quarter system is manageable, but time management is definitely needed and planning ahead how to get papers done when they zoom up so quickly is important.</p>
<p>I love the quarter system because I get to explore more subjects. Kids on semesters get about 40 classes in their entire college experience. I will get to take over 50. The classes aren’t necessarily rushed or harder insofar as the material because they are built to be ten week courses. They definitely get going in a hurry though. Everyone likes what they end up with. If you go to Santa Clara, you will learn to love quarters too.</p>
<p>What is it like starting in mid-September and ending in June? I just don’t know if I’ll like that because I’ll be stuck at home for a couple weeks when my friends are gone and they’ll be back much earlier when school is over too.</p>
<p>Blazer… while I don’t know about Santa Clara specifically, I do know about kids going off to college. This will really only matter maybe the summer before college begins and your freshman summer. Winter break seems to line up pretty well with a semester calendar. Starting sophomore summer, there are internships, junior year travel abroad trips and a dozen other options that students are busy with that even those who are on the exact same academic calendar will miss seeing one another. What I would question somewhat is the availability of those summer internships/research opportunities since you’d be unavailable until mid-june, especially because a lot of options start sooner than that and then end mid-august. How do student’s navigate either a late start in a program or position and a month of sitting around waiting for school to start?</p>