While summer and winter session classes do allow students to fill course requirements, it seems that individual departments need to be very careful when allowing courses offered in a shortened period of time. While certain courses like Organic Lab are needed to accommodate high demand for certain classes, we do need to understand that taking a class during a 3 or 6 week period is very different from taking classes during the regular semester in 16 weeks.
Our own sports editor, Shonto Olander, is an English major with a focus in American Literature. He has taken many courses during the summer time, and has told me of the relative ease of the coursework offered during the summer. I’ve taken a core class for my own Biomedical Engineering major, Engineering Dynamics (MEC262) and I know that professors can’t cover as much information during a shortened time frame. In the case of certain English classes, no one can really tell if you read fewer works by Henry James or not. However, with certain mathematics and engineering courses, less material, even a little bit less, is just not good.
I know Professor Purwar in MEC262 this past summer was saying that summer courses, especially for a fundamental engineering topic like Dynamics, are just too much for students to handle. As good as Professor Purwar was, I am sure I could have learned better if I had taken the MEC262 during the regular semester.
Many other students take summer classes, from my knowledge, as a means of avoiding certain stickler professors during the fall or spring semesters. BIO203, taught by Professor John Cabot during the spring semester, for example, is much easier if taken during the summer. Anyone who has taken BIO203 can corroborate my statements here. Also, the curves for certain classes are much more favorable for summer courses. A generally weaker crowd of students (except for courses like Organic Laboratory, CHE327) allows for better curves.
The option for taking courses during the summer or winter certainly does raise questions of credibility for undergraduate degrees offered by Stony Brook University. A student looking to apply graduate school or medical school or even a job in industry can say that they got an “A” in a certain class in the summer, while it might be much harder to get that same “A” during the normal academic year. Why should a company or professional school look more favorably upon a student who took an easier class? A student, such as myself, who took Engineering Dynamics in 6 weeks, most definitely had a different learning experience than someone who took Dynamics during the fall or spring semesters.
The problem goes back to enrollment. Too many students enrolling in this university force departments to create more summer courses. If the admissions people would just cut admissions rates down to 30-35%, we would actually have a controlled environment where we wouldn’t have to question the value of degrees, we wouldn’t have overcrowding at campus facilities. The quality of life for students would increase dramatically, and SB would really look much better on paper as a destination for prospective high school students. The only downside: the university would make less money by admitting fewer students.
Sure, if a student is just interested in a certain class, and doesn’t wish to use up precious time during the normal academic year, he or she may benefit from a summer class. But if a student is dependent on a class for his or her degree and future career, he or she should really think twice before taking a summer or winter course.
