After spring seniors graduate and most students leave for home, other students stay behind to soak up the warm weather as they continue working on their degrees.
As the coolness of spring is slowly receding, summer students get a chance to shake off the cold and embrace the heat. Staying during the summer brings an opportunity for students to speed up their degrees by offering summer classes as well as on-campus jobs. However, there is a difference in the atmosphere. Students take a step outside the campus buildings and take in the beauty of the campus greenery.
Digital animation and game design junior, Da’Shanya Williams, felt campus life in summer has more to offer outside.
“The summer and the fall are kind of the same as during both of those times the campus is lively,” Williams said. “Everyone is outside more engaging in activities such as events by or near the school, walking, using hammocks, and more.”
Williams also felt that with the rising heat, events tend to have more attendance.
“The campus is beautiful as the flowers and trees have bloomed,” Williams said. “There are also some events, such as a carnival that was a good way away from the campus. There were prizes, fun, and food, with so many more. I chose to stay on campus as I am working over the summer as an orientation leader. Also, I thought it would be another opportunity to make more friends,”
The summer part of the summer semester may give the campus more laid-back vibes, but the semester is relatively short, and classes receive large amounts of work to do. The semester lasts from May 14 to August 7, meaning students have 12 and a half weeks to complete their courses.
General chemistry professor, Dr. Mark Thompson, stays on campus during the summer.
“I tell my students it is like drinking water from a fire hydrant,” Thompson said. “Things fly by at an incredible pace. We do, in a five-credit class in six weeks, what would normally be done in 15 weeks. That means three weeks of difficult material every week. Campus never really seems busy in the summer. Even less so now with the aftermath of COVID-19.”
In a short time, four or five-credit courses cover their topics faster than the fall semester, which gives students a high workload. However, the professors do have more one-on-one time with their students. Students can develop better relationships with their professors and get the help they need to succeed.
Thompson also explained how most classes offered in the summer are not offered again until the following spring.
“It gives students the chance to catch up,” Thompson said. “Without this class during the summer, they would have to wait until the following spring to take it. It is a pre-requisite for everything else, which means that without this class, their degree would take an extra year to complete. Most days, I spend four to five hours in class daily with my students, two hours of lecture and three hours of lab. We get to know each other very well.”
While summer may not be everyone’s choice of attending classes, they can still count on it as an option for a more peaceful yet fast-paced campus that allows them to further their degree, and maybe get a tan.