January intersession enrollment open now

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A. Sue Weisler

Criminology, Social Justice and Community Action was just one of the courses offered during RIT’s first intersession Jan. 2–22, 2014. It combined classroom work with field trips in the Rochester community. The class visited the Center for Youth on Jan. 15.

The January intersession has expanded to offer more than 25 TigerTerm classes at discounted rates to RIT students.

Intersession classes take place from Jan. 5 to Jan. 23, 2015, and cover a variety of subjects, including criminal justice, statistics and clean energy. While the majority of classes are credit-bearing, some are supplementary. One class, Critical Math Skills, is free. For students interested in studying abroad, an additional two classes are available at RIT’s campus in Croatia. TigerTerm classes are offered for both undergraduate and graduate students and are discounted at rates of 30 and 25 percent, respectively. The classes are taught both on campus and online.

Students can enroll in intersession classes on the Student Information System portal right now. Enrollment will remain open until classes begin.

“When students come to RIT, we have a responsibility to provide them with the ability to graduate on time,” said Fernando Naveda, director of the Office of Intersession and Summer. “Graduation has many colors and interpretations, and there are many roadblocks or accidents that can happen along the way. TigerTerm courses provide students with tangible opportunities for completing their degrees on time or even earlier.”

TigerTerm courses run at a highly accelerated pace. The January intersession lasts just 15 days, making one day of class roughly equivalent to a week’s worth of learning on the semester schedule. Because of the workload, students are limited to a maximum of four credits during the term. Although intensive, this singular focus allows for some unique learning opportunities.

“It’s much more immersive—it’s deeper because you are only doing one thing,” said Naveda. “Because of that, the faculty can do things that they can’t normally do during semesters. Last year, the social justice class went to venues downtown to visit figures from the local government and held class meetings at places such as coffee shops.”

The first intersession was introduced last year during the semester conversion and offered 13 classes. More than 200 students participated in the program and five of the classes reached maximum capacity. With the expansion of the program this year, Naveda is aiming to double those numbers.

Naveda worked with other RIT administrators and the Registrar’s office to make class schedules available much earlier, which he hopes will help students plan ahead and consider alternative scheduling options. This initiative also includes the summer term, which begins June 1. The class schedule for summer is already available on SIS and Tiger Center class search.

“If we want to offer these courses, we have to be aggressive about getting things out there at times when students can actually plan for them.”