Starting this December, ETSU students will be able to take classes during the winter for the first time ever. ETSU hopes to take advantage of what would usually be about a month with no classes after the fall semester. With this new term, students will be able to graduate sooner and also have the opportunity to space out their fall and spring semester classes more.

The winter term session length will be set similar to the summer sessions. They will start on Dec. 20 and continue until two weeks after the spring semester starts, about Jan. 27.

“I loved my summer class,” said Kelsie Gardner, an interdisciplinary studies major at ETSU. “The classes are smaller, and the parking is better. [Winter term] is the same concept right? It’s a fast way to earn credits needed to graduate. It’s probably a great idea.”

For students, an extra session means that it could take less time to complete a degree, provide more opportunity to get in classes that are usually full and give a chance to make up a grade in a class that may have not turned out so well the first time around.

“Well, I liked getting my hard classes over with in five weeks,” sophomore Patrick Massey said about his summer classes.

“I felt more focused on one class at a time which made it easier to study. I don’t think [the winter classes] will turn out quite as well but maybe it would be a good chance for people to catch up”

The classes will all be online, so students will not have to travel anywhere. They can complete the session from the comfort of their own home.

The winter term can only offer up to four credit hours at a time, and the cost will be a little bit higher than the normal semester hourly rate.

However, students will still be allowed to use their financial aid, and they will not have to pay for the classes until the spring semester payment is due.

“When their financial aid comes in, it would go to that charge,” said Sarah Bradford, director of summer school. “We wanted to make sure that students understand they won’t have to write a check for $700 right before Christmas,”

According to Rick Osborn, dean of continuing studies and academic outreach, the school has been working on the plan for a winter term for almost a year now.

“A new term like this touches everyone,” said Osborn. “From the registrars office, to the financial aid office to every department on campus. It’s been worked on for a while now.”

Bradford said that some of their ideas came from other private schools that had “J-terms” [January terms]. The university decided from there that offering short terms for quick credits was something it could definitely benefit from.

“We had some things to do with the summer sessions,” said Bradford.

“That kind of got our feet wet. About a year and a half ago, we decided it was time to activate it and plan it further.”

Originally, the classes were planned to just be general education courses for the lower-level students, but as the planning for the program continued, so did requests for other courses to be included. Several higher-level classes and even graduate level classes will be available online next winter.

“We originally thought that it would be just general education,” said Osborn. “But the more we’ve talked to departments, the more they’ve wanted to offer more classes that are harder to get into.”

According to Bradford, some of the schools that have implemented the winter session have seen even better results than they had with their summer classes. ETSU expects to see similar results from their winter program

“We think it’ll motivate students who realize this is an opportunity to speed up their graduation” said Osborn.

“We also thought it might attract non-ETSU students and increase enrollment.”

In the long-term, the university hopes to see an increase in graduation rates. They believe that the more chances there are to graduate early, the more students will complete their degree.

“We want it to benefit students in a positive way,” said Bradford. “Ultimately we think it will be a good thing for the university.

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