Students are just arriving on campus back from a long three-week
vacation, but they are not heading to their normal scheduled
classes. Nor are they taking their finals or heading to the office
to pick up their new schedules. They’re off to intersession.
Now what is intersession? Students of Anzar, for two weeks after
winter break, are placed in a class of their choice. Some choices
are as follows: cooking, marine biology, forensics and rock star
101. The students have a variety of subjects to choose from.
Students are just arriving on campus back from a long three-week vacation, but they are not heading to their normal scheduled classes. Nor are they taking their finals or heading to the office to pick up their new schedules. They’re off to intersession.
Now what is intersession? Students of Anzar, for two weeks after winter break, are placed in a class of their choice. Some choices are as follows: cooking, marine biology, forensics and rock star 101. The students have a variety of subjects to choose from.
After the classes are selected, students return from winter vacation and stay in these classes for the whole day, every day, for two weeks until intersession comes to an end. The classes are mostly graded on a pass/fail basis. If the students pass, they’re awarded a certain amount of credits, which are seen as miscellaneous credits on the students’ transcripts. Sounds like a good way for the students to ease back into the swing of things and at the same time learn a few skills in something normal high school classes don’t offer.
To get a feel of what intersession seems like to others, I asked around and got the impression that this idea is looked up to and also down upon. Intersession gives students new subjects to explore. Subjects a normal school doesn’t have the time, funding or staff to teach. Yet there are some who think intersession takes away from time that should be spent in normal classes the students need to graduate. I caught up with a few of these people and got the scoop on what they think about intersession and what should be done with it.
The first person who spoke about intersession with me was sophomore Daniel Goodman.
“It’s a good opportunity for students to get electives that are normally not offered here. This is because our school is so small and is unable to support them as normal classes,” Goodman said. “Intersession also gives the teachers a chance to teach something that they may find appealing to their own interests. In the past, I took cooking class, which was very enjoyable and taught me new traits that I can one day take with me into the real world. I think we should keep intersession and switch up the activities every year. A consensus should be made each year by the teachers to keep students interested, learning and having fun.”
The next student I spoke with was a first timer. The anonymous student, a freshman at Anzar, had never taken an intersession course before, but is eagerly awaiting it.
“It sounds really fun, but basically I’m happy because I get to relax for the next two weeks. Studio art is the class I will be taking and this is because I enjoy art and I would like to learn some new stuff. Intersession is cool because, after being away so long, you can ease back into the groove of things. We should keep intersession at Anzar and every year we should switch it up (the classes presented during intersession) and see what happens,” commented the student.
But what does all this mean without the opinion of an adult? I asked a parent, who wished to stay anonymous, about intersession and whether it was a good idea or just another project that won’t get anywhere.
“Intersession is a complete waste of time!” the parent said in an outrage. “The school should offer these courses during the school year. I don’t feel rock star 101 or film studies is worth this waste of time and is totally inappropriate. I feel I’m well informed with the subject, but I think they could be doing something more valuable with their time.”
And with that as my last interview, I started to ponder, “What is the future of intersession. Will it be a success or will it be discontinued?”
Intersession seems like something that can benefit students and give them a break from the tough work to come. This is a good idea that just may work, if only everyone had an open mind about intersession. Only future students and staff can make the most of it, so let’s try our best to do so.
Nick Brown is a junior at Anzar High School.
