<p>Have any current or recent students had issues with internship programs that have a hard start date before the end of school?</p>
<p>My Daughter loves Carleton but is a little put off by the trimester system, and I'm a little concerned that the June end date would either make an internship difficult or at least eat up any decompression time.</p>
<p>You kid gets a long decompression between Thanksgiving and Christmas if they attend Carleton. The students I know who have gone there have not had a hard time getting internships. Not many internships have hard start and end dates, honestly – a few, but most do not. </p>
<p>I wish I saved one of my past sermons on The Beauty of the Trimester, but I have not. I’ll sum up with:</p>
<p>1) My ds never had a problem getting work or an internship in the summer. Yes, you get there a little later in the summer, but you are available after other kids have been long gone.</p>
<p>2) The fabulous break from T’giving to after New Year trumps any other perceived issue with the trimester schedule, IMO. There’s no “should we fly them home for a few days in bad weather when prices are ridiculous and they’ll be home in a couple of weeks anyway?” discussion. My ds worked during that five- or six-week break. Also, if you’re from a Sun Belt state like we are, that’s six fewer weeks in a MN winter. He had plenty of time to see all the extended family. Just less stress overall than we experience with my ds at a semester school. That’s all good.</p>
<p>3) Longer spring break was an unexpected bonus. Most years, he came home for the whole thing, but the almost two weeks also is time to spend part of the time doing his own thing AND part of the time here, seeing dentists and taking care of whatever business needs to be attended to.</p>
<p>I was googling for some examples of hard start dates last night and couldn’t really find any- just the White House and Google itself. Even Google seems to have a second later start date to accommodate students on a “quarter” schedule, whatever that is (Stanford?).</p>
<p>I’m familiar with the trimester system having gone to Earlham and I did like the compact and focused nature of the academics. But my messed up family situation made the 6 week break complicated. I think it can also be difficult for international students who don’t plan on going home over thanksgiving break.</p>
<p>ormdad, trimester and quarter are basically the same, except that schools on the quarter system offer summer classes – hence, four quarters of schooling, rather than the three trimesters at Carleton. UChicago, Northwestern and Oregon are other examples of quarter schools.</p>
<p>The compressed academics are a good thing to consider. And ds always would complain that they didn’t get many holidays during the 10-week term. :)</p>
<p>I agree that things might be different for international students, but I assumed your dd wasn’t one so I didn’t address it. Intl students can pay to stay on campus during the long winter break and even spring break. Meals not included.</p>
<p>I want to amend my earlier post because I didn’t mean to imply quarter schools had some of the advantages of Carleton, such as the long holiday break. I meant that they are similar in that they start and end later than most traditional semester schools.</p>
<p>Also it does look like Stanford is on a quarter system:</p>
<p><a href=“https://physics.stanford.edu/undergraduate-program/summer-research/research-outside-stanford”>https://physics.stanford.edu/undergraduate-program/summer-research/research-outside-stanford</a></p>
<p>I’ve never seen an internship that would potentially exclude a Carleton student because of the late end date in either industry, government, or academia. </p>
<p>10 - 15 years ago there was talk at Carleton about abandoning the tri-mester system for a semester system. I think Carleton students, parents, and alumni would be crazy to let this happen. I agree with the advantages previously mentioned in this thread. Another major benefit of the tri-mester system is that it gives the students a better education. For example, you can focus on your 2 or 3 finals. In a semester system you’d be focused on 4 or 5 finals. </p>
<p>Also, in a tri-mester system, it feels like the students are in school longer and have greater access to faculty. For example, at University of Michigan. Class would run from Early September to Early Decemeber, and you were suppose to have finals until Dec. 21st or 22nd. This rarely happened. Profs at Umich would just put the final on the last day of class in early December. Also, in a semester system, often a prof. would take a week off from class without having it really effect the flow of the class. All of this just made it seem like the semester system limited student’s access to profs.</p>
<p>Totally agree with what jack63 said about the benefits of trimester system. It is more efficient for learning. The Carleton student I know likes the pace of teaching. He went to a special high school that offers accelerated courses except the foreign language courses. He disliked the slow pace of teaching in a regular public high school. Some students may feel challenged by the 10-week term at first but they can learn to handle it well. He has no problem getting an internship this summer after the first year. Actually he had to wait for more than a week to start his internship after the finals. You just don’t know when the boss may take his vacation. I also know a Notre Dame student who was done with school in the middle of May but did not start his internship until the end of June. Personally I would not let the trimester factor exclude Carleton from my college application list since it offers quality education and pretty good FA. After all the admission results are received, I will make further comparisons with my choices.</p>
<p>
For @reesezpieces103’s full post (and the Dec. 2012 thread of which it is part), see [url=<a href=“Carleton and getting a job - #14 by reesezpiecez103 - Carleton College - College Confidential Forums”>Carleton and getting a job - #14 by reesezpiecez103 - Carleton College - College Confidential Forums]here[/url</a>].</p>
<p>@reesezpiecez103 thanks for posting that and @dodgersmom thanks for unearthing it, this sort of affirmation is what I was hoping for. Carleton is my Daughter’s #1 “realistic” choice (below Brown and Yale) and I think this was really the only remaining minor issue.</p>
<p>My Daughter met a Carlton student who is interning at a top high tech company. So I’m convinced it’s a non-issue.</p>
<p>Yea! Go to Carleton! ;)</p>
<p>Not an issue.</p>