Submitted by: Bob Shubert(205) Bob Shubert Log in to become a member of Bob Shubert's Fan Club!
A mini-mester (sometimes called a mini-term) is a full
semester packed into a short two-week period. It is usually scheduled between
the spring and summer semesters or between the fall and spring semesters.
Anytime there are two weeks open in an academic calendar somebody is going to
try to slip a course in. Mini-mesters usually consist of six 4-hour sessions
over a two-week period. Classes can be morning, afternoon or evening courses.
These courses may not be desirable to some students but it seems particularly
attractive to students that consider the course boring, painful or a bother.
For these students it is an opportunity to just get it over with. Some subjects
would not seem to be a desirable venue for mini-mesters because of their
difficulty in mastering, i.e., calculus.
These may all be valid issues but there is one issue that would appear to
overshadow all the rest. Too much study time is needed. Classes that are held
six days for four hours of lecture in each class should necessitate two hours
of study time per hour of lecture. This totals up to 24 hours of lecture a week
and 48 hours of study time in the same week. A student must spend 72 hours
per week in lecture and study for a single 3-hour course. By comparison a
normal 13-hour load in the fall or spring would require 13 hours of lecture or
lab and 26 hours of study, which totals 39 hours per week. Sounds like a normal
40-work week.
Students who endure a fairly challenging college course in a mini-mester term
must totally dedicate themselves to this endeavor. That means no dating, phone
calls, text messaging, sporting events, going home for the weekend or just
being lazy. The student has 5 hours each day for eating and other personal
needs such as doing their laundry. This assumes they don't need the extra time
to prepare for tests.
It is not my intention to condemn the mini-mester concept.
If I were still in college I would probably want to take advantage of the
offering. I have even recommended mini-mesters to a relative because it would
put a very undesirable course behind her in a very short period of time. My
desire is that someone in the educational arena will try to lengthen the time
frame so it is not so intense. If it is a May mini-mester course, the
administration should be able to find a couple of days in the August or
December academic calendar that could supplement the May mini-mester schedule.
I know that the December-January time period is another chosen time frame in
the academic calendar for the mini-mester term but surely something can be
done.
The education community should be commended for the efforts to provide an
academic calendar that meets the needs of the students. The mini-mester may be
just too tight a time frame to properly meet an educational need.
Bob worked in telecommunications for 25 years and is now retired. Married 147 years, 3 kids and 6 grandchildren he is an avid history buff. He loves to go to Fort Worth Cats baseball games. He has a B.S. Business Management from Tennessee Tech and is a Certified Civil Defense Instructor in Family Planning for a Nuclear Event. You can also find Bob's articles at his Associated Content producer's page.
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