Summer sessions fall just shy of A

Summer school. These two words are more than enough to scare any elementary-school child into straightening up and flying right. However, the term has come to take on a different connotation at Rider. The University has recently revamped its summer session offerings in an attempt to sell more students on the concept of warm-weather education. Rider has done an excellent job creating its new plans, but there are still a few kinks in the system that will need to be worked out as the years go by. Chief among these weaknesses is the course roster itself. Very few classes are actually offered over the summer and these usually only fulfill general requirements. For example, there are only two courses in the Communication Department being offered this summer that would fulfill an individual track requirement. These classes are Radio and Television Communication, which counts toward the Radio and Television track, and Intercultural Communication, which counts toward the Interpersonal Communication track. The rest of the University’s offerings fulfill general Communication course requirements, such as Writing for the Media I and Mass Media Communication, which can be easily met during the normal school year. In the future, the University will need to offer more specialized courses that aren’t available as readily during the fall or spring. However, when it comes to tuition, Rider seems to know its stuff. Summer undergraduates will pay only $370 per credit, as opposed to the normal $730 per credit fee paid each year as part of every student’s blanket tuition. This one should be a no-brainer, since summer sessions should cost considerably less than fall or spring sessions. Classes offered in the fall or spring last considerably longer than the three-week and six-week sessions available during the summer. As such, a course condensed into such a small time frame, while much more intense than a normal class, usually ends up consuming much less of an individual’s time in the long run. Furthermore, a lower price is required in order to convince students that giving up any part of their summer break is, in fact, worth their time. Rider does another good thing with their summer tuition,