Semesters aren’t so bad

Holly Dickson is a journalism senior and Mustang Daily copy editor.

When the idea of switching to semesters was first brought up in conversation this fall, an angry and resistant reaction boiled up inside me. I kept quiet for a while, listening and learning about the likelihood of the conversion, but “NO, NO, NO,” played over and over in my head.

Now that the switch has been established as more-than-likely and I’ve had time to both process the idea and weigh the pros and cons, I’ve arrived at a different conclusion.

I feel like I have a unique perspective on the situation. During my first two years of college, I attended two universities on the semester system — University of Puget Sound and then University of Alaska Fairbanks — before I transferred to Cal Poly at the beginning of my junior year. Although quarters are different, I adjusted, and the fast-paced rhythm forced me to keep my motivation constant. At Cal Poly, midterms are an ever-threatening presence and finals week always shows up sooner rather than later.

Some have argued that quarters are what set Cal Poly apart from other universities, but that’s not true. Sure, they do help the university stand out, but they are not a crucial part of Cal Poly’s identity — the Learn by Doing motto is, the unique programs and the gifted students are, too. If an Ivy League school like Dartmouth College switched to semesters I would think nothing less of the school. We should all realize that Cal Poly will not lose its ‘edge’ if it becomes a semester school.

In fact, the more I’ve thought about it, the more convinced I’ve become that semesters would actually help the Learn by Doing motto thrive. I can’t recall a class I’ve taken at Cal Poly where a professor didn’t lament at least once that “If only I had more time you could learn this and this or go here and do this.” Hands-on classes, such as photography or materials packaging can’t be crammed into 10 weeks — you simply don’t learn as much or gain as much expertise.

Although I think semesters are more conducive to learning, I admit that switching to semesters sounds like nothing less than a logistical nightmare. Biology associate professor Matt Ritter agrees.

“Going from quarters to semesters is going to be a ton of work for everyone involved,” Ritter said. “I worry about classes that get cut because of the streamlined curriculum.”

But Ritter did agree that classes that do make the cut would benefit from the extra time for instruction.

The limited time during quarters has resulted in a chaotic midterm schedule. Cal Poly would benefit from more consistency, rather than midterms scattered from week two until week nine. The midterm schedule during semesters allowed for one midterm (there were plenty of other tests during the semester) during a single week halfway through the term. Once that week was over, there was a four-day weekend, or a “mid term break.” It created a more unified university instead of the mismatched schedule produced by the quarter system.

Child development senior Aimee Bradshaw has had a midterm almost every week of fall quarter.

“I feel like on semesters a midterm is really what it sounds like — a midterm,” Bradshaw said. “And on the quarter systems you have three midterms for one class.”

Although I’m using my differing experiences at universities to come to a conclusion about the benefit of semesters, I don’t think it requires that perspective to realize that the Cal Poly administration is going about the process all wrong. As students who pay thousands of dollars to this school and the Cal State University system each quarter, we should get a say. As students, we should be outraged that by denying the student body a vote, campus administrators are basically implying that we don’t matter enough to play a part in this decision.

Whether or not their minds are already made up, and if they’re just going through the motions by forming a Semester Task Force, they should at least satiate us by letting us vote and pretend to take the results into consideration.