The Case For Summer School

Undoubtedly, there is nothing college students look forward to more (save graduation) than summer, as it means a three-month break from  schoolwork and for many a long-awaited return home. It is time to kick back and relax, regardless of the occasional times you need to check your email or log into your student account to stay abreast of developments that affect your academic career. Of course, advancing your academic career during the summer need not be limited to enrolling in classes online for the fall or answering emails concerning financial aid or housing. No, you also have the often-economic and potentially-rewarding choice of attending summer school.

Yes, I know "summer school" isn't the most inviting pair of words for students to read, many of whom likely have negative associations with it lingering over from high school. After all, you've worked hard to get where you are, so why take it upon yourself to take part in the thing that your algebra teacher used to threaten slackers with if they didn't step up their game? Well, to begin with, summer school need not necessarily be a punitive measure, in spite of popular perceptions of it as such. On the contrary, it can just as easily be a way for motivated students to complete required coursework ahead of the game. This is possible due to the numerous courses offered by colleges during the summer, a significant portion of which satisfy general education and major requirements.

In addition, summer courses can take as little as half the time you would need to complete the same course during the regular school year, meaning you can fulfill a GE or department requirement in, say, 6 weeks. If you take multiple courses, you can maximize the amount of requirements you complete during the summer, which could lead to you finishing your requirements as early as junior year and giving you more leeway in taking fun classes that you might not otherwise have the time to take. Not to mention that summer class workloads are generally lighter than fall, winter and spring ones, although this obviously depends on your professors, which is why it's equally important that you determine if you want to finish some degree work or just trying to pad the amount of units you've taken during the summer and thus how difficult the classes you want to enroll in will be.

You don't even necessarily have to take summer classes at the college you're currently attending: you can enroll in practically any institution, from prestigious universities to the community college down the street, during the summer. If you're planning to complete degree work, however, it is of the utmost importance that your home university will accept any courses you take elsewhere and that the courses you take actually satisfy said requirements. Imagine how depressed you would feel if you spent 6 weeks of summer in a class you couldn't care less about because you thought you would get upper-division credit for it only to discover during the fall that it was in fact a lower-division class and that you're still where you were when summer started. Not a pretty thought, but this scenario can easily be avoided by looking up course information on the summer catalog of whichever institution you are considering attending and speaking with a counselor to make sure that the university and/or your department will accept any course you take. All this may seem like a pain, but if you're diligent, it can be a very wise move on your part.