Zak Wood / Colorado Daily

Zachary Dodge, a junior in the Environmental Studies program, reads for his School and Society class on the Norlin Quad, Monday afternoon. Maymester began Monday and finishes on May 30th.

No sooner did Friday’s Commencement ceremony, signaling the official end of CU’s ‘07-‘08 school year, pass than some students reconvened for a new session yesterday.

That’s right, for many students, Monday marked the beginning of Maymester – an intensive three-week course devoted to the complete study of one subject.

“In Maymester, students meet three hours a day, so they are doing a week’s worth of work in a day,” said Carol Drake, CU’s Director of Summer Session at the Continuing Education Building. “They do that for three weeks — which translates into the same amount of time a semester.”

According to Drake, the most tenacious students can knock out as much as 15 credit hours by attending all three summer sessions – but whereas Summer Sessions A and B following Maymester are long enough to allow students to take up to two classes per session, the three weeks of Maymester provide only enough time for one three-credit-hour course.

As far as selecting courses that not only interest students but also satisfy the requirements of their chosen major, Drake noted that the majority of the Faculty teaching courses during the summer are already employed by CU. The exception is a program called Faculty in Residence Summer Term (FIRST), which brings in professors from universities around the world to teach courses exclusive to summer sessions.

“(Continuing Education) works with a group of Summer Session Deans where each school and college has an assistant or associate dean that is responsible for Summer Session,” said Drake. “We work with that group of individuals to try and develop a good curriculum, and I think we have done a good job this summer.”

Drake said that the current catalogue of summer courses allows students to choose from over 500 different summer classes ranging from three, four, and five credit hours. Again, while only one three-credit-hour course is available during Maymester, Drake mentioned that the most popular courses students tend to take are the more difficult math and sciences courses such as physics, calculus, and chemistry.

“I think that for many students in the summer it is an opportunity to focus on one class,” she said. “So you take a class like Physics and you are not taking four other classes on top of it, so you can just focus on it completely.”

In terms of tuition, out-of-state students can take advantage of the seasonal change in price for summer sessions versus those during the regular school year. Whereas in the Fall and Spring semesters out-of-staters are charged a lump sum for tuition, summer sessions allow them to pay by the credit hour. In-state students are charged the same any given semester.

Although price can be a determining factor for some students, most others tend to choose summer sessions at CU in order to shorten the time it will take them to earn their degree. According to Barbara Todd at CU’s Registrar Services, approximately 1,150 of the 7,500 students projected to complete summer sessions will earn a degree upon completion of their term – which is translated roughly into 900 Bachelors of Arts and Science Degrees, 150-200 Masters Degrees, and 50-100 Ph.Ds.

According to Drake, however, several hundred of these students were in attendance at Friday’s Commencement ceremony – before they actually earned their degrees.

“It varies by college that awards the degrees, but most schools will allow their students to attend Commencement with as much as 12 credit hours that still need to be earned,” said Drake, explaining what has become somewhat of a common practice in lieu of Summer semesters not having a commencement ceremony.

“They haven’t officially graduated yet, but that way they can still go through the ceremony and do the cap and gown and all of that, and then graduate in August when they have completed their summer courses.”