Does the quarter system hurt UC?

[shaunsimpson]

I don't know how many schools are on the quarter system currently, but I know that UC still is. I believe the law school and med school have changed or are going to change. That being said......does the quarter system hurt UC football (and basketball a little)?

If you didn't hear Mister Simpson was not able to meet the transfer requiremnets and will not be a Bearcat this next year. It seems from the Enqurier article that this was due in part to credits not transfering well by transfering into a quarter based school.

It goes further than this. Attendance at home games before school starts is bad. I don't know how many students show up, but it would be nice to have them be excited to see the novalty of the first game instaed of relying on the rest of cincinnati to come see UC play a 1-AA team.

I had always thought that UC stayed on quarters for the co-op program, but it does hurt football (which may not be priority #1 for the school right now).

[ewad]

Yes, yes and more yes the quarter system is hurtful to the UC football program.
Not to mention very few schools still use it anymore.

[Brian H.]

As someone who once transfered to UC I can tell you it is really bad. They count semester credits as 1.5 quarter credit hours regardless of material covered. This left me to retake classes I had taken in order to make up requirement credits. My 3 semesters of Calc did not equate to the 4 quarters I needed at UC for my program even though the material covered was the same.

[red_n_black_attack]

The transfer system at UC for being on quarters absolutey makes no sense. I transferred in from Univ of Evansville for 89-90 (Huggs first). I heard horror stories from other transfrees, but apparantly the UC system is somewhat arbitrary depending on the school. I was given more than a year (three quarters) of credit for the two semesters completed at Evansville.

I guess Michigan isn't the elite rated school we keep hearing in the media or (shoking on my tongue as I type this) Nancy Z was successful at transforming UC into a more difficult place to get a degree.


I work for a large corporation employing several interns throughout the year, and few come from schools on quarter systems. The semester students have more time to get hands on projects that they can own a little more independently.

On the back side of the school year, football players from UC may miss rookie camps because they cannot participate until they graduate.

BOTTOM LINE: UC needs to be on semesters.

[mlb]

I think it is only a matter of time before the remaining state schools in Ohio (I believe UC, OSU, and Wright State) move to semesters. I think they Enquirer had an article about UC researching the issue a year or two ago. My money is that within 5 years UC switches.

[daaphearthrob]

Who cares how quarters effects Athletes transferring into UC!? Mister Simpson isn't playing football this year because of his own laziness, not because UC's quarter system put him behind the 8-ball.

I'm a huge Cats fan, have been all of my life... and it's been agonizing to see some of the talented players that could have been come and go from that campus. But ultimately it's on the player to take care of his academic situation. It's not like Simpson was majoring in anything hard. He had an entire year to get caught up and didn't. Boo hoo.

Brian Kelley is going to have a strong Running Backs corp with or without Simpson he wasn't going to make or break this team. If he is that kind of talent then he would have been starting at Michigan.

The quarter system is great for the University because it allows students to have a much better co-op system than semester schools. I was able to spend 3 months at school and 3 months at work my entire academic career. Most semester schools only get the summer to co-op. The beautiful part of it all was I was co-oping in the spring and fall when the competition for high level internships was low or non existent.

[qsilvr2531]

The law school is already on semesters. The medical school is also on it's own calendar system, which is similar to semesters but doesn't match the law schools schedule exactly.

UC will probably try to move to a semester system. Overall the benefits of a semester system are way overstated though and most of them come from the fact that others schools aren't on quarters. Co-op really does work better with the coop program. Also, most students I have talked to that have used both prefer the quarter system as well. The transfer issue is the biggest disadvantage the quarter system has going for it.

The conversion will not be painless either. It is likely to be expensive and the students that are already in school during the transition will probably have some problems (a friend of mine at Georgia Tech was at school during their switch and he ended up taking an extra year to graduate because of it).

I'm a little surprised that 3 semesters of calc don't count as 4 quarters of calc, everyone I've talked to has not had that problem. Assuming they were 5 credit hour semester courses, it should have covered all 4 calc quarters here. Unless you took 3 or 4 credit hour calc courses at the other school, in which case they wouldn't cover the 5 credit hour course that UC offers. Before the calc labs that did force a few people I knew to retake calc 4, whereas now I think they typically just have to take the 1 credit hourlabs for calc 3 and/or 4.

If they do decide to change (and I expect they will), I really hope the impact on the athletic programs are way down the list of reasons why.

[General Woundwort]

The semester system is definitely on its way at UC. It is going to be a difficult transition, but it is on its way for certain. Hopefully, it is handled better than certain personnel moves were. I only hope that I can complete my graduate work without getting caught in some ugly transition period.

Mister Simpson attended Michigan State, not Michigan, so the academic rep of UM is not exactly relevant. And while the switch from semesters to quarters didn't help, the primary problem was that Simpson did a poor job in the classroom, both at MSU and at UC.

[jkwuc89]

Mister Simpson did not attend Michigan State...he attended Michigan.

[Irishbearcat]

I thought he went to UM.

[mckenzie.drew]

I know the administration has been talking about this for awhile, if my memory serves me correctly they are working on the transition plan and that you could expect to see semesters at UC after 2010....that might have changed but I know it is coming sooner than later.

This would definitely help attendance at football games early on in the season.

GO BEARCATS!

[shaunsimpson]

It sounds like co-op is the only thing that is benificial as the DAAP member has pointed out. I am not just talking about Simpson, but the attendence is also is hurt by the quarter system.

Also, as a school it hurts anyone who tries to transfer in and is an off schedule for many trying to find jobs.

I guess it could go both ways, but I am sure it hurts football.

[Brian H.]

Who cares how quarters effects Athletes transferring into UC!? Mister Simpson isn't playing football this year because of his own laziness, not because UC's quarter system put him behind the 8-ball.

I'm a huge Cats fan, have been all of my life... and it's been agonizing to see some of the talented players that could have been come and go from that campus. But ultimately it's on the player to take care of his academic situation. It's not like Simpson was majoring in anything hard. He had an entire year to get caught up and didn't. Boo hoo.

Brian Kelley is going to have a strong Running Backs corp with or without Simpson he wasn't going to make or break this team. If he is that kind of talent then he would have been starting at Michigan.

The quarter system is great for the University because it allows students to have a much better co-op system than semester schools. I was able to spend 3 months at school and 3 months at work my entire academic career. Most semester schools only get the summer to co-op. The beautiful part of it all was I was co-oping in the spring and fall when the competition for high level internships was low or non existent.

Actually I transferred from one of the premier co-op schools in the nation, then GMI now Kettering U. They were on semesters and did two semesters a year of co-op, they made their semesters only 12 weeks and crammed 16 weeks of material into it. (sucked a lot, that and having your schedule set for you and there being only 24 girls out of 260 freshmen in my class). You never saw the students on the opposite cycle of co-op/school. It was crazy since I switched cycles after the first year, different fraternities were the cool or nerdy ones, different sports had the intermural focus, all kinds of odd stuff. It was the same school yet a totally different environment.

[Bruce Monnin]

I used to supervise co-ops from various schools at my job. Semester students were always a mess. They couldn't get the classes they needed, were always trying to rearrange which semesters they co-oped, you never could plan ahead exactly when they would be around so you would always have a consistent amount of co-ops at one time.

The quarter school co-ops would come and go every other quarter like clockwork. We wished all the co-ops were from quarter schools.