Miami University's new Winter Term is well on the way to making its grand debut on Jan. 2, 2014. As of Sept. 10, 1,729 students had registered for classes, according to Registrar David Sauter.
Students can choose between 86 classes at Miami's campuses, 67 abroad or across the US, or 83 online and hybrid classes, Sauter said.
Students have the options to study abroad, complete a workshop, conduct research or complete an internship. Miami is the first public university in Ohio to offer a short Winter Term, according to the Miami Winter Term website.
This new academic calendar, however, has forced Miami to change the schedule of the semester, making it a full week shorter than in years past. In order to account for this, class times have been lengthened. Classes that used to be one hour and 10 minutes are now 10 minutes longer. Classes that meet once a week have been increased from two and a half hours to two hours and 40 minutes.
In the past, students had at least 15 minutes in between classes. Now, some classes are only separated by ten minutes, meaning students have to rush to get to their next class. One of these students is junior Jake Shine, a pre-medicine major.
"I feel like I'm running around a lot more this year compared to last year," Shine said.
On particularly busy days, Shine has only ten minutes between his two to three hour-long labs, leaving him tired at the end of the day.
Not all students' schedules have changed, however. Sophomore architecture major Drew Hubbard said the winter term has not affected his schedule.
"Not much has changed for me, I still have workshop around three to four hours long," Hubbard said.
Students are not the only ones who have had to adjust to the new schedules. Interactive Media Studies professor Robert Withers teaches one of the longer class periods, and said he has had to adjust several things to make it fit.
"I had to alter my syllabus because of the shorter week, and it was a challenge to split up my topics evenly," Withers said.
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