Hello - does anyone have experience (or opinion on the topic!) with the six week summer school before the fall quarter begins?
S23 is interested in this as a way to 1) perhaps take one of the large lecture classes in a more “intimate” setting and 2) get acquainted with UC Davis and maybe make a few friends.
Son is on the more reserved side and knows he will need to stretch to make friends and to make the hugeness of Davis “small” via some sort of group or connections.
Going away and the academic rigors of UC Davis will be big adjustments. Our wonder and hope is that a summer session would be a softer landing.
Thoughts on it helping the transition and on taking a class which is typically a huge lecture class?
I do not have a student who has done this program, but D23 was accepted into UCD (not attending) and I would have 100% encouraged her to do this for all the reasons you state (at one point she was considering a similar program at UCSB). Hopefully you will get some good feedback from other parents who have been through the program. Good luck!
Could depend on how many courses / credit units he takes. Since a 6 week summer session is 3/5 of a 10 week regular quarter, taking 9 units in that summer session should be a similar workload as 15 units in a regular quarter.
It does look like there are two 6 week summer sessions at UCD: 2023 Courses | Summer Sessions . There is also a summer special session and a full 10 week summer quarter, but those appear to be mostly individual or group study, field work, etc. type of “courses”.
@ucbalumnus Davis, like most other UCs, runs two 6 week summer sessions. The other options you are seeing are for very specific, unique programs.
@3boysmom3, Davis is very quiet over the summer. To my knowledge, they don’t have a Freshman Summer Start Program similar to what is offered at UCSB. The only program I am aware of is for international students. At UCSB, he would be able to live in the dorms. At Davis, he would need to sublet an apartment. Taking a summer course would help orient him on campus. It will also give him a few more units which will help give him better registration times in the future. I don’t know that it will provide groups or connections better than the freshman dorm experience.
The title of this thread made me think of the summer STEP program for entering EOP students. Just mentioning it in case a future entering student looking for summer program info finds this thread.
EOP is for FGLI students and you have to specifically apply to it on your UC app. You also have to be admitted to it, which is separate from being admitted to the campus.
There are similar programs, including a summer portion, at other UC campuses.
You could be right. If that is the program OP is inquiring about, I think it will be a valuable social introduction to UC Davis. The summer courses offered to STEP students tend to be limited.
For a softer landing academically, I recommend he consider not jumping past classes that AP scores give him the option to skip. For example, if he has an AP Calc score that allows him to skip the first quarter, take the first class anyway. It will count toward GE and be easier than jumping straight into fresh material.
Calc is a large lecture class, but if it is not offered in the Summer Session, he can still use this strategy to soften things in the Fall.
There may be similar thinking for other APs if you let us know his major and what those APs are.
I do not agree with this common recommendation, since it can be rather uninteresting for the student (and may result in overconfidence leading to poor performance in the class) if the student already knows the material well. Repeating what one already knows well is also a waste of time and tuition.
A better method of determining placement is for the student to try the old final exams of the courses allowed to be skipped.
That is also a possibility, but it seems like OP is describing a student for which this would not be very likely. They’ve specifically asked for soft landing advice, which doesn’t sound like a student prone to overconfidence.
I have a student with a 5 on Calc BC test who could have skipped the first 2 quarters (21A and 21B), but decided to only skip the first quarter. The 2nd quarter they took was, in fact, review, but they did not find it uninteresting or boring, and did not get overconfident. Still pulling As.
Seems like a better soft landing choice for a summer course would be an out-of-major general education course that is not generally considered to be difficult.
A soft landing during a 6-week summer session at a school that normally has 10-week quarters would also have no more than about 9 quarter units worth of courses.
Hello - what a lovely offer! Son is undeclared but will investigate a pre-health major. He is not a math wiz, placed into intermediate algebra and there were thoughts on taking that class over the summer along with a GE required class which is typically huge and impersonal (other than the TAs).
You are correct - there is no overconfidence here! Does he think he is capable? Yes but he also went to a not overly rigorous high school and I’m sure the academic requirements will shock him. Hence the idea of experiencing Davis in the smaller summer session with it hopefully not being overwhelming to figure out how to navigate things.
There is complete excitement about Davis and the will to have a different college versus high school experience (relative to engagement with activities and socially).
Is he undeclared in the College of L&S or College of Bio Sciences?
You probably already have this info, explaining some special advising, but just in case you don’t.
I also want to mention that the UCD Freshman orientation program is rather thorough, in case he doesn’t do a Summer Session. The students can move into their dorm a couple of days before Orientation starts, and then they have 4 days in a group of about 20 students, learning about and touring all the places on campus. Great way to meet new friends in the small group.