Major Courses During the Summer

anvilfactory
Sun, 22 Apr 2007 17:17:17 +0000

I’ve been lurking about reading posts on this forum, but I’m not sure whether anyone has ever asked this type of question before. This is more geared toward community college students, but anyone can answer provided they have the experience.

I was wondering what everyone’s personal opinion is about taking major courses during the summer. I’m not asking about whether you got A’s because I don’t think there is neccessarily a correlation between a grade and one’s knowledge, but whether you really learned much during the summer. Granted, it’s obvious that the semester, quarter, intersession, and summer session provide for slightly (?) different experiences, but is it such a wise idea to take major courses during the summer? It seems to me that it prepares you less for the post-cc experience, but maybe it’s different for everyone else.

The primary reason I’m asking for this is because I’ve been against the idea of taking major classes during the summer because I’m afraid it’ll deprive me of the experience I could gain during regular class times. However, what makes me consider taking major classes is that taking them during the summer makes you more certain that you will be done with those requirements.

This is what I imagine my schedule will be during the Fall:

West Valley College
-English 1C ~ Clear Thinking in Writing
-English 5A ~ English Literature

Mission College (my primary CC)
-Psychology 1 - Intro to Psychology
-Japanese 3A - Second Year Japanese
(I’m aware it’s not a heavy load at all, but I only need 11 units per semester.)

I’m thinking about taking out Psychology 1 and putting in English 47 ~ Introduction to Poetry for West Valley. However, I’m not sure if I really want to take three English courses twice a week on the same day. Now, I know it shouldn’t be a problem–I’m an English major and it should “be easy.” Plus, I’m bound to have the same amount, or more, English classes when I transfer, so it’s good to get used to that. It’d probably be a cinch for most College Confidential students, but I don’t think I can compare myself to you guys. Hahaha.

To alleviate what I believe to be a problem, I thought about resorting to the summer thing. I’m thinking about taking either Intro to Poetry or Intro to Shakespeare at DeAnza during the summer (gosh, I don’t really want to deal with transcripts, but…oh well). By doing that, I don’t have to worry about one or the other. However, I’m not sure if it’s a wise choice to do so. Requirements are important, but the acquiring the skills needed for the post-cc experience is important as well. I suppose simply getting into the instituion you want is more important, but I was wondering about everyone else’s experiences so I can make a better decision.

I apologize if this sounds more like a rant than a question. I hope I didn’t come off as too annoying (at least compared to chances threads, hahaha).

Thank you in advance.