Ah, summer school. That joyous continuation of study over the summer months. Spending long hours curled up over textbooks, inside and hidden from the sun’s harmful rays. Sure, you might not get sunburnt but what else can summer school do for you?
If you’re about to embark on summer school for the first time, here’s what you can expect…
During the year you have work commitments, social activities, and extra-curriculars all vying for your attention and drastically impacting on the time you can devote to your university subjects. Students enrol in summer school for different reasons, but for me it’s a way to spread out my subjects and also fit in part-time work, a social life so I’m not constantly tearing my hair out.
For others, it’s a way to knock over a few more subjects and graduate sooner, or to re-do subjects that didn’t quite turn out for the best when they initially studied it.
Most summer school subjects involve fewer class hours. When I studied contract law last summer, there were only three contact days on campus. The rest of the work was done at home with an assessment due approximately every two weeks. It was the best subject ever because I didn’t have to be on campus every week. I got to work at my own pace, in my own time when I was motivated and wanted to do it.
I also had another summer subject that was run entirely online, and involved completing and uploading weekly problem questions to the forum. Assessments and exams for this subject were also completed at home at my own desk.
I am not going to lie, summer school is intense. You are taking a subject that is normally taught over a semester of 12-14 weeks. Summer subjects are condensed in time, but not in substance. You will be expected to cover the same amount of work in 6-8 weeks. That’s not a lot of time, but it can be done. I had set hours everyday for study and the rest of the day was free time.
I found it to be way less stressful than juggling four subjects during a normal semester and I had the best of both worlds: a holiday and a successful short semester at summer school. For me, summer school was a worthwhile experience and I’ll be back in class again this uni break. So go ahead, save your skin from the summer sun and try out summer school!
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