CSU East Bay students have a lot of reasons why they are against the semester system. However, these perceptions are based on false assumptions that the quarter system will allow them to graduate at a quicker pace, spend less time in a class they do not find appealing and allow them to gain a better education because they can choose from more classes.

What they are neglecting to accept is the fact that the transfer from the quarter system to the semester system can actually benefit them by making it easier for them to transfer from community colleges to universities, providing them with more in-depth learning experiences and allowing them to experience less stress throughout the academic school year.

Over the last 15 years, the percentage of colleges and universities operating on the semester system has grown from 70 percent to 90 percent, the CSUEB website said.

Campuses have converted to the semester system with the motivation of improving student success and achieving efficiencies. This topic has been discussed at CSUEB since 2001 and the majority of the faculty and staff were opposed to it in the beginning.

According to the California Community College Chancellor’s office, there are 112 community college campuses in the state of California and only three of those colleges, Foothill, DeAnza and Lake Tahoe, are on the quarter system. CSUEB’s student population consists of 60 percent of transfer students, said CSUEB Vice President for Academic and Graduate Studies Sue Opp.

“It’s difficult because it’s not a one-to-one relationship,” Opp said. “Sometimes students find that they have half a unit left over here and there that doesn’t really fit into their course requirements and so it’s much less straightforward of a mechanism to transfer semester courses to a quarter school.”

The transfer of units between semester and quarter schools is uneven since there are two semesters per three quarters, every semester unit is multiplied by 1.5, Opp said.

“So if you had three semester unit courses each course is worth 4.5 quarter units,” she said.

The transfer would also allow students access to the CSU’s concurrent enrollment program which offers 33 online courses used to alleviate the “bottleneck” classes, said Michael Uhlenkamp, director of public affairs for the Chancellor. These courses are only aligned with schools on the semester system.

Only six CSUs are still on the quarter system: CSU East Bay, CSU Los Angeles, CSU Bakersfield, Cal Poly Pomona, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and CSU San Bernardino. If these campuses transferred to the semester system, it would streamline CSU’s online efforts to meet the needs of students.

CSU Los Angeles and CSU Bakersfield announced they plan to move away from the quarter system: CSU Bakersfield in 2015 and CSULA in fall 2016.

A main factor persuading CSUEB students to favor the quarter system falls under the guise of graduating sooner than they would in a semester system, because the quarter system allows them to take more classes.

Although most studies have shown there is no significant data to support that there is any reason why students can get through faster on the quarter system, Opp said.

She describes the academic year in the quarter system as a pie divided into fours.

“On quarters you’ve cut it into four pieces consisting of the regular three pieces, then the summer,” she said. “On semesters it’s divided up differently so it’s more like three pieces except the summer piece is actually smaller, it’s just that it’s divided up differently; but the whole is really the same.”

Taking classes on a semester system would not allow students to graduate any slower than a quarter system because the student’s major would require less classes to graduate. A student may argue that the semester system does not offer as many classes as the quarter system; however the classes that are offered include a more in-depth curriculum than those offered on a quarter system.

It is true that a 10-week quarter system operates at a much quicker pace than a 15-week semester system; however a short amount of in-class time can actually cause a significant amount of stress on students.

For example, if you are sick and miss a week of class on the quarter system your grade can be greatly impacted whereas you are more likely to be able to make up points and class attendance on a semester system.

The quarter system also gives students less time to work on major projects that may take longer than 10 weeks to complete.

“I think that quarters can be too short to be able to get the real depth of learning,” Opp said, who taught upper division and graduate classes at CSUEB prior to her current position. “When you wanted to do a research paper, you know you need to work on the material and talk about it for a few weeks before they can come up with the topic and then they’re already halfway through the quarter, then there’s only a couple of weeks to write a paper and it doesn’t give enough time for students to be able to do revisions and re-drafting.”

Students on the quarter system also have to go through the process of scheduling classes, paying tuition, ordering books, and paying for housing if they live on campus, three times a year instead of twice, which can cause financial stress.

Internship and job schedules also do not operate on the quarter level. Working students may experience more difficulties throughout the year on the quarter system compared to the semester system, where they would only have to change their work schedule to fit around their classes twice instead of three times.

Many CSUEB students fear the change to the semester system because they have been used to the quarter system for so long. However such a change would benefit students in the long run. Students will be able to spend more time on projects, they will experience less stress from having to constantly change their schedules and those from community colleges would be able to make the transfer with fewer complications.

It is understandable to not like something because it is different, or because we would simply prefer things the other way. However, life doesn’t always revolve around what we prefer; it revolves around the bigger picture.

Having all the schools on the same system would help to eliminate challenges students are facing statewide. It might be a little weird at first, but the only thing that would really change is the way we learn, not the quality of education that we will have. Even though the change from the quarter to semester system has no official timeline in sight for CSUEB, students should still have an open mind towards the benefits the semester system can provide them.