2008 Woodie Awards
Piña coladas? $20. Four more weeks of summer? Priceless.
Issue date: 6/2/08 Section: Editorial
Ah, summer. The sun is shining, the beaches are full and you … well, you're stuck in the S Quad listening to another boring physics lecture.
While the carefree days of June beckon, you're still stressing out over midterms and research papers.
"Oh, well," you think to yourself. "That's just the price you pay to go to college."
Then, it dawns on you: All your other friends have been out of school for nearly a month now! You curse the quarter system and wish a pox on the house of the nefarious mind that conceived it. There has to be a better way, right?
Yes, there is, but it doesn't necessarily consist of abandoning the quarter system. De Anza college is in many ways, unique - but one of the things that distinguishes it most from other community colleges is that it is one of only two in California that operate on quarters (the other being Foothill).
Most students enjoy the quarter system, and its benefits are undeniable: more options when it comes to registering for classes, a breezy schedule that avoids the "slumps" of the semester system and multiple opportunities for one to bolster a flagging GPA or take a break from school for a little while.
On the other hand, students on the quarter system spend 36 weeks on campus and often find themselves taking finals in the middle of summer. This can be a nuisance for a number of reasons, but primarily it's just a bummer to be in school while the rest of the student world is out on vacation.
Want to plan a trip to South America with your buddies from SJSU? Don't bother - they'll be sipping Piña Coladas at beach parties in Guatemala while you're sipping triple espressos and pulling all-nighters in your living room.
Yes, it's true, semester schools start a couple weeks earlier than we do, but they also finish much earlier and often have longer winter breaks. Why? Because they only go to school for 32 weeks per year. They achieve this by simply packing more class time into every week.
While the carefree days of June beckon, you're still stressing out over midterms and research papers.
"Oh, well," you think to yourself. "That's just the price you pay to go to college."
Then, it dawns on you: All your other friends have been out of school for nearly a month now! You curse the quarter system and wish a pox on the house of the nefarious mind that conceived it. There has to be a better way, right?
Yes, there is, but it doesn't necessarily consist of abandoning the quarter system. De Anza college is in many ways, unique - but one of the things that distinguishes it most from other community colleges is that it is one of only two in California that operate on quarters (the other being Foothill).
Most students enjoy the quarter system, and its benefits are undeniable: more options when it comes to registering for classes, a breezy schedule that avoids the "slumps" of the semester system and multiple opportunities for one to bolster a flagging GPA or take a break from school for a little while.
On the other hand, students on the quarter system spend 36 weeks on campus and often find themselves taking finals in the middle of summer. This can be a nuisance for a number of reasons, but primarily it's just a bummer to be in school while the rest of the student world is out on vacation.
Want to plan a trip to South America with your buddies from SJSU? Don't bother - they'll be sipping Piña Coladas at beach parties in Guatemala while you're sipping triple espressos and pulling all-nighters in your living room.
Yes, it's true, semester schools start a couple weeks earlier than we do, but they also finish much earlier and often have longer winter breaks. Why? Because they only go to school for 32 weeks per year. They achieve this by simply packing more class time into every week.
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