Mini-mester, summer sessions have benefits

By Victoria Marshall
The TC News Reporter

Mini-mesters and summer sessions are a great way for students to get their credits quickly. Summer Session I is from June 6-July 7 and Summer Session II is from July 11-August 11.

Professor of Sociology and Psychology, Alyce Bunting, is teaching General Psychology and Introduction to Sociology online during Summer Session I.
Bunting says the benefits to summer courses and mini-mesters are that students are able to complete their courses in a shorter amount of time and accelerate to graduation.

“Students can obviously get a lot of hours in a short amount of time. If we limit 6 hours for the first session and 6 in the second, that’s almost a full semester in 10 weeks,” said Bunting

Summer sessions in particular are beneficial to students who are coming home for the summer and students who want to make room for classes only available in the spring and fall. Students who go away to school and come back home for the summer also can benefit from the lower tuition costs in the summer.

“I have a lot in my summer classes who are students who come home for the summer and want to earn a few hours. They benefit,” said Bunting.

A possible negative to summer sessions is the increased pace of the classes. Professors try to fit in an entire semesters’ load of work into a five-week session.

“It’s a much faster pace. I do not take out any assignments or tests. They have to do the same stuff. The due dates are a little more fluid,” said Bunting. “In a regular semester, they may have one assignment due in a week. In the summer, they’d better be studying daily and probably completing an assignment daily. They have ten assignments and two tests.”

Although the workload sounds heavy, students who stay focused on their assignments and set an adequate pace for themselves can be successful in the course. It is important for students to complete the reading and set time aside for their assignments. Bunting says the summer students are very good students because they are extremely dedicated.

“I have students in the internet classes during the long semesters who finish within a few weeks,” said Bunting.

Robert Hewett, General Psychology Professor, took summer sessions at TC in the late 1980’s, when he went back to school. Hewett has taught summer courses for five years and has only had one student drop. Every student he has taught in the summer, has passed with an A or B.

Spring mini-mester is May 6- May 27. There are seven mini courses offered this spring. Each class begins at 8 a.m. and releases between 1p.m. and 1:30p.m.

Helen Fraizor, Professor of Lifespan Growth & Development, has been teaching mini-mesters for five years.

“The advantages for students is that you’ve only got two weeks and you do not have to spend an entire semester taking one class,” said Fraizor. “Because of the length of the class, information is more easily retained because teachers are not hurrying as much.”

The class sessions are five hours each day, but there is still plenty of time left in the afternoon and evening for students to study. Time management is important for mini-mester students to make sure they are devoting enough time to help them retain the information they’ve learned in class.

“It puts pressure on them to read the chapters every night and to write a research paper in that two-week span. Once again, it’s over and done,” said Fraizor.

However, students are able to spend more time with their teachers individually. They are able to ask questions, to increase their understanding of the material.

“The classes are five hours a day, five days a week. With that much time, it allows the students to spend more time discussing and students get a more individualized class in what they are interested in,” said Fraizor.

“The classes in mini are very small. Most of them run around ten to twelve students, so I think it’s much more relaxed.”

“When the classes are smaller, the students help each other more,” said Hewett. “It’s a group effort.”

Hewett said when the classes are larger, it is hard for Professors to pick up on a student’s difficulties. They have a shorter time to meet with students during the week and have to try to fit their lectures into the class period.

“Students who have problems learning would have to speak to me before class starts,” said Hewett.

“Mini’s have been around for years, it’s just that we’ve started them recently at TC.”

All three professors had the same opinion on the type of students who should take these courses. The students have to be dedicated and focused on doing well in the class. The classes are more condensed and there is no time for any procrastination.