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[Phys-L] Re: Quarters vs Semesters



Howdy,

I've been retired since 2001 after 30+ years at a Community College
(CC) just outside of Chicago. For my complete tenure at the College
we were on a Quarter system that I thought worked very well for our
students. A while before I retired the Chairman of the Board decided
that we should go to Semesters because "students were having problems
transferring courses with universities," especially in Illinois,
because most of them were on semesters. In my 30+ years of teaching
Physics at this CC I NEVER had a student complain about problems
transferring and we had agreements with a huge number of Universities
on course equivalents. No study was ever done to see if there really
was a problem. The ball was rolling for the conversion; I got to
retire before it came, this Autumn, and I'm glad!

Advantages of Semester System: 1)Easier to transfer courses to a
University. No actual evidence for this but...; 2).... ummmm... there
is no (2) [as was pointed out, a 3-Quarter year is the same as a 2-
Semester year. There could be a difference in Survey of Physics
course which would last a single Quarter/Semester].

Advantages of Quarter System (at least for CC students): 1)Need only
make an 11 week commitment (since we have many part time students and
faculty); 2)Quarters start Mid-September so students who decide to
return home from a University that is on Semesters (which start in
late August around here) can still register at our CC and not miss a
beat in their education; 3)Having 3 (4 if you include the summer
quarter) times a year to register is an advantage for students who
work full time and must pick and choose their classes and times
carefully.

So that's 3 good reasons to keep quarters and 1 unsubstantiated
reason to change to semesters!

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs@wideopenwest.com)
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