First off – I know what you are thinking. Summer is supposed to be a BREAK from school when I can slack off and be lazy!! You aren’t necessarily wrong. Summer is a wonderful time to relax, sleep all day, and party all night. However, taking just a single summer course will make school easier down the road with a lighter course load. Not to mention how MINISUCLE the class sizes are!!! We’re talking MAYBE six or seven people!
Taking gen-eds in the summer gives you the ability to get ahead, have a smaller class size, and still be able to relax and enjoy summer. For example, I take one class right now – three hours on two out of seven days of the week. The class goes by quickly and there is minimal homework. With it being a literature class, I can sit and read the stories anywhere I want – by the pool, outside, or on the couch.
Since there are only five or six of us in the class, our professor knows each of us well and we get a HUGE say in what we do as a class – how long breaks are, what we discuss, the grading format we prefer. In a normal fall or spring semester, you would never have a say in any of that.
In the summer – there are WAYfewer distractions! There are no parties or sports or campus events to pull your focus away from your homework. Long, hot days are great for sitting inside and doing homework or studying when you have nothing better to do. Your summer becomes a lot more productive than just sitting around watching Netflix and eating cereal because you’re too lazy to make real food.
I have found that taking courses over the summer makes these four months of nothingness worth so much more than watching all the episodes of Family Guy on Netflix for the 25th, 26th, and 27th time in a row.
