College Semester or Quarter, poll
 

hi, just curious here, does your college/university run on 2 semesters adn various summer sessions or does it run on the quarter system. i mainly wanna know if it is a state thing or just random.

I'm at winthrop in south carolina and we have semester system.

Louisiana State Uni and Tulane use the semester system. I wouldn't be surprised if the other state schools use that as well.

California seems to be pretty random. The UCs except Berkeley are on quarters, but most Community Colleges and at least some (most?) Cal States are on semesters. As for private universities, USC and USF have semesters, but Stanford has quarters.

All the state schools in Oregon are on quarters; the private schools are on semesters. A couple of the schools have two semesters and a J-term (January term).

University of Idaho runs on semesters and I believe University of Montana does also.

All UK universities use three terms:

Autumn - Christmas
Christmas - Easter
Easter - Summer

Universities in Canada usually run:
Fall Semester: Sept-Dec
Wint: Jan-April
spring: may-june
summer july-aug
generally you take 2 courses (3 max) in spring and summer, as the hours per week double.

Back when the dinosaurs walked the earth and I was in college, there ere alot of schools in the US that were on a tri-mester schedule... I am not sure if they still are... I know people who were on such schedules it made it difficult to find summer jobs and especially internships because they got out of school a lot later than others.

University of North Texas' psych graduate school termed it a semester system. We had a fall semester, a spring semester, and two more crash "semesters" during the summer. Now that was a "psych-out."

/me initially went through a trimester system...is that no longer an option?

Truman State University - semesters

I do believe trimester is the same as quarters without counting the summer quarter. Either because there isn't one or it's not included because it's not "mandatory".

when I went to Queen's, Frosh week started in the 2nd week of September, midterms were in the beginning of November and exams just before Christmas. Second Term started the first week of January, with reading week in February, followed by midterms. Exams were in April.

There was an inter-session during May/June, before summer school term started.

janey, that's almost exactly how my school is..

i'm beginning to think this is an east coast/west coast thing :)

North Dakota State uses semesters as well

looks like its the majority going with that so far

Iowa State uses semesters as well.

Two semesters with a six 4 day week summer session, with each period doubled in length..

trimesters are four-month grading periods, three to a year...

Kalamazoo College [Kalamazoo, MI] is on the quarter system - but with only 3 quarters; they don't offer a summer quarter, I'm told it's because they don't want kids to get burned out...

Each quarter is 10 weeks long, plus finals.

Fall Q: Sept 19th - December 1 [I'm including finals week for these dates]
winter jan 3 - march 16
spring march 27 - June 8th

As for others, I'm pretty sure almost all the colleges around Northern Ohio/Michigan area are on semesters - except for the Ohio State University.

Well I guess I wasn't aware of that...what kind of vacation is in that schedule?

When I was at the University of Utah, there were two semesters...spring and fall, and a short summer "quarter". Doesn't really fit in the poll, but I voted for semesters.

2 semesters at North Texas

none...college is not high school...

well, unclephil, are you required to go all 3 semesters per year?

I think that colleges are on the same cycle as universities, there must be some allowance for vacation periods (Christmas, summer, reading week). Most institutions expect a typical full time course load that does not include the summer school...

you could go to one, two, or all three...your choice...

My university calls them quarters, but they're really trimesters. 10 weeks per term. I suppose they're called quarters because there is an optional "December quarter" during the 6 week winter break we have.

ASU is set up on semester system, but has a decent number of classes that run a half-semester (both halves of both semesters), plus a winter session and two summer sessions, if you want them.

blaow
 

blaow

Semesters in KY. Quarters in OH.

quarterly, which blows because we don't get enough time for each class, nor do you get decent breaks.

Linfield has two semesters, with a one-month january term in-between...which is a joke. It's just designed for heavy drinking, on campus, or abroad. Yummy.

Oh man, i hate quarters. Semesters are much better!!!!

At Tennessee Tech, they switched from quarters to semesters in the middle of my time there. The conversion was a pain in the ass, and I ended up having to take an additional semester of English, cause I was a quarter behind, and the Dept refused let me off. I ended up graduating with a .3 hours in one of my English classes.

Oh and I liked semesters better.

At Trinity College Dublin, in Ireland, we use three terms.

But confusingly enough, we also use two semesters! So the first term is in the first semester, the second term is split between the two semesters and the final term is in the second semester. But we only break between terms. The switch between semesters happens 'invisibly'.

So it's like:<pre>[term 1][term 2][term 3]<BR>[semester 1][semester 2]</pre>