The First Days of Classes – and Summer School?

It’s been a wet, cold, grey start to classes this week, Deac families.  Not the ideal start to classes and getting into the new routine of the semester.  And your Deacs should keep an eye on the forecast – we’re under a winter storm warning tonight according to weather.com.  Should there be a weather-related delay or closing, here’s how your students can find out about it.

One of the things that always happens in the first week or two of the semester is some juggling of schedules.  Some students get off of the wait list in a class they’d wanted, thus opening up a space in the existing class so it can go to a wait list person.  You can see the domino effect that creates.

In addition, there are some students who attend the first few sessions of a course and decide  that they don’t feel like they should stay in the class.   Sometimes that is because the class seems too advanced for the student, or they realize they have bitten off too much relative to their other classes, or perhaps they are pledging or are heavily involved in a student organization and feel pinched for time.

As long as a student has 12 hours every semester, he or she is considered a full time student.  Fifteen hours a semester will get a student to graduation in 4 years (provided he/she has met GPA, major, and other requirements).  When students have fewer than 15 hours, they need to begin to think creatively about how and when to make up those credit hours.

Summer School at Wake Forest can be an ideal solution here.

Wake Forest offers two sessions of summer school each summer, and students can take many, many courses that fulfill Basic or Divisional Requirements and more.  The Parent Programs office is a big supporter of Summer Session, because we’ve personally seen the benefits for some of our own academic advisees and students we’ve come to know.

Some of the main reasons we see students go to summer school are:

– they have a very difficult course ahead, an area they struggle with a lot and don’t think they can balance at the same time as their other courses

– they have an important prerequisite class (often for presumptive business majors or students who want to go into the health professions) and they want to concentrate on ONLY that course for the summer, minus the distractions of friends, parties, etc.

– they deliberately chose to ease in to their college experience to ensure a successful first semester/year and have only opted for 12 credits each semester

– they are considering a break or gap in their academic path here to do a longer internship or project (we saw this with students working for political candidates in the election) and need to get ahead/catch up on credits

– they are student athletes or are involved in significant campus commitments that require them to slow the pace of their scholarship

The Summer School website offers course listings, testimonials and schedules.  Online summer school registration will begin for currently-enrolled Wake Forest  students on March 18, the first day of class following the return from spring break.

If your student falls into any of the above categories, consider as a family the possibility of summer school.