But watch to see if those 8 electives can be from any school or department, or if some must be from the engineering school. My daughter has regular electives (history, social studies, maybe even a business class) and 3-4 classes called electives but which are limited to a list of courses in the engineering department. She can choose between oceaneering or meterology but not music for that elective.
Some people like quarters because they move faster and cover less material but in a shorter time. Some schools like Colorado College do just one subject at a time, which is tough if there is a lot of reading for a class. I took a lit class one summer and it was horrible as I was having to read a book a day as every class day would have taken 2-3 days during a regular semester.