Volume 24 · Number 3 · Spring 2007
Parents
Summertime—and School Is in Session
Summer school is becoming a regular part of the school year for more and more students.
Summer school isn’t what it used to be. Formerly a resource for students who needed to repeat classes or make up work, summer school at UC Davis and elsewhere has become a place of opportunity, where students can experiment and enrich their college experience.
They can also meet practical goals like saving money and graduating sooner.
Nevertheless, when your own student says, “I’m thinking of going to summer school” your first reaction may be disappointment because he or she might not be coming home. Before you speak—especially if your first instinct is to take a stand against summer school—it helps to know what’s at stake.
Additional savings
Students can get a partial rebate of their Summer Session fees if they enroll in Chemistry 118 or Physics 7 or if they are nearing graduation and can complete their coursework by September. More information about Summer Sessions and the rebate program can be found here.
Why go?
“I do it because I’m a double major with lots of extracurricular activities,” says Adhanet Ghebray, a senior economics and international relations major from Union City, who prefers to take only three or four classes per quarter during the school year. Ghebray reduced her course load by attending both of UC Davis’ six-week sessions, two years in a row.
During the school year she participates in Club Finance Council, is an undergraduate representative in the Student Services and Fees Administrative Advisory Committee and holds a part-time job. “I want to finish in four,” she says. “The only way is Summer Sessions.”
Given Ghebray’s hectic schedule, Summer Sessions actually provides a bit of a respite. “You get to focus on just two classes, and that makes it a lot easier.”
Helen Meyers, a communications major from Granada Hills, found it hard to get essential classes during the year. She, too, attended Summer Sessions twice explaining that “it was worth it because I’m not as stressed as I would be. In my senior year, I’m not concerned about getting into the classes I need because I was able to get them in Summer Sessions.”
Like Ghebray, Meyers is eager to “finish in four” but she likes Summer Sessions for other reasons as well.
“Classes go outside more because the weather is nice,” she says. “They take advantage of the landscape. One of my American studies classes studied the bridges over the arboretum.”
Other practical reasons
Not everyone would agree with Meyers that Davis’ hot summers are “nice,” but one of her practical reasons for staying is widely shared.
“If I go home,” she explains, “I’d still have to pay rent here. It’s difficult to sublet if you don’t know someone. You have to make it significantly cheaper—like half off. One summer all four of my roommates were gone and none sublet. You can lose a lot of money.”
Students also know that if you need only one quarter to graduate, it will be difficult to find housing during the school year. Many seniors choose Summer Sessions instead, making them the largest group to attend (44 percent in 2006). Juniors come second at around 30 percent. (Alumni don’t attend in large numbers, but they are welcome, too.)
Although timing and finances lead many to Summer Sessions, it’s no surprise that grades are also a factor. Al Harrison, director of Summer Sessions, explains that studying in summer can be a good way for students to “protect their grades.” By concentrating on something difficult during Summer Sessions, students can strive for the high grade-point average that might elude them in the crush of the school year.
The UC Davis story
Harrison, who is new to the director position, remembers what it was like when he taught social psychology at UC Davis in the summer of 1969. “Summer school was kind of a funky little thing. Not many people teaching. Not much variety. I don’t think it was taken very seriously.”
In the decades that followed, Summer Sessions grew at a moderate pace, but beginning in 2000 it surged. Last year, attendance neared 10,000 students, and more than 650 courses were offered. Instruction is handled by regular and emeritus faculty (about 28 percent), lecturers (about 40 percent) and advanced graduate students, at a price comparable to the academic year, with financial aid available.
A recent survey indicates that many students view Summer Sessions as an essential part of their academic plans. For example, an entire year of an introductory foreign language, including Arabic or Japanese, can be taken in a special 12-week program.
The flavor of respite is not gone, however. Innovative courses, such as “Marine and Coastal Field Ecology” taught at the Bodega Marine Laboratory, as well as smaller class size in some subjects and the possibility of greater contact with instructors, keep summer different from the regular academic year.
“If it were up to me, I would take one course that was going to be challenging and I really needed to get out of the way, but for the second course I would look for something that I thought was going to be really interesting and more relaxed,” says Director Harrison.
Last year “freshman seminars” were added, open to students at all levels, in which a faculty member explores a topic that he or she holds dear. Class size is small.
Sophomore Maia Kostlan, a geology major from Davis, agrees that despite extended class hours and the accelerated pace, summer is more relaxed. “It’s amazing how empty everything becomes. You can find parking. You can get anything you want from the library.”
Students should study both the catalog and the calendar before signing up. At UC Davis the first six-week session starts only 10 days after spring-quarter finals. Between first and second session lies only one tiny weekend, and second session ends only two weeks before fall classes begin.
Interim Vice Provost Fred Wood, who has also served as a dean for many years, understands that students need breaks from studying and sees the value of taking just one session: “You can learn in the summer and still have a summer vacation.”
Indeed, both faculty and students extol the value of participating in one summer session and taking the other off for travel, research or time with family.
Can you work, too?
This is a sticky proposition. At UC Davis it is difficult to find a short-term job that fits easily before or after a summer session. If, instead, the student chooses to hold a job while attending Summer Sessions, he or she may be overwhelmed.
Adhanet Ghebray, the double major, explains what happens when 10 weeks of class are compressed into six. “You could very well have four hours of lecture a day, homework every other day and a midterm every week. I did hold a job and take summer school, but it was too much. It’s hard to juggle.”
Dean Wood says, “We see students who take one course and work. If they take two courses, they work part time, if at all. If they take three courses, they rarely work.”
Although students may feel bad about passing up a chance to earn money, Helen Meyers appreciates the academic boost from Summer Sessions that “leads to other advantages later on, compared to working at a retail store for three months.”
Occasionally, an enterprising student finds both a paid summer internship and a faculty sponsor, so that he or she can earn money and Summer Sessions credit at the same time.
An important question
But do students in summer school see their parents?
Distance between school and home is a factor, of course, but at UC Davis many classes operate on a four-day-a-week basis, so that students can go home on a long weekend.
And since Summer Sessions at UC Davis is open to nearly everyone—including alumni, students at other colleges, competent high schoolers and international students—parents, theoretically, could attend with their students.
But, says Director Harrison with a smile, “I haven’t heard of a case of that.”