Psycho Doctor said:
I'm amazed so many people took summer courses.
How often did you do this and what was the reason?
I only did it the summer before senior year and it was b/c I switched from engineering to neurobiology and had to catch up on some required courses.
I took summer classes three out of my four summers as an undergrad, mostly because I was in the dual degree program at my school and needed about 200 hours to graduate, so I needed all the credits I could get.
I was an English/Psychology double major, and started taking my pre-med pre-reqs my senior year. I did OChem I and OChem II, as well as Physics I and Physics II, and Physics I Lab and Physics II Lab one summer. My school has two five week sessions, and I was in class from 10:15-12:15 for my OChem classes five days a week, and then had Physics lectures from 12:30-2:30 every day as well. Physics Labs were three days a week from 2:45-5 pm, and I had this same schedule for the entire 10 weeks. I got an A- in my first OChem class, and then A's in everything else, and let me stress that I was NOT a science major and had never had any exposure to these classes before.
I got 14 hours of credit that summer, and I think that it was a lot easier than taking the classes over an entire year. You got to concentrate exclusively on one or two things at a time, so you were so immersed in the subject that there was no way you could forget any of the things you had learned. I took MCAT that August too, and all my orgo stuff was so fresh in my mind, even though not a lot of it was on my test form!
I had both good and bad teachers that summer session, but found that the teachers were more forgiving about grades. I think one test was dropped in my Physics Classes, and the teacher had a curve where the top 10 percent of the class got A's, the next 10% got B's etc. So I think it was more advantageous to take it in the summer.
I also took some classes I didn't want to have to suffer through for a whole semester during the summer, to get them out of the way, like my Math requirement or my Speech requirement. I also did an Art Appreciation class and a Psychology class for my major over the summer. I kind of wished all classes were taught in an intensive five or 10 week session throught the year, instead of having an entire semester's worth of five or six classes.
And like TheDarkSide, my school let you take the OChem lab separately, which was great for me because I didn't have any room in my schedule for it the summer I took the lectures (In class from 10ish to 5 p.m. most days). I took it the spring semester after I had taken the lectures the previous summer, and didn't have any problems with it.
guess i better look around for the best fees on offer for summer school physics.. ..
