When signing up for Tuesday-Thursday classes, you might just be signing up for an extra week of school that semester.
Classes that meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays are 80 minutes each, adding up to 160 minutes a week. Monday, Wednesday and Friday classes meet for 50 minutes per class period, totaling 150 minutes a week. This means Tuesday-Thursday classes meet for 10 extra minutes each week.
By multiplying the 160 minutes spent in Tuesday-Thursday classes per week by the 15 weeks in a semester, the amount of time students spend in Tuesday-Thursday classes each semester totals to 2,400 minutes. On the other hand, multiplying the 150 minutes spent in Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes each week by the 15 weeks in one semester totals to 2,250 minutes over the semester.
Based on these calculations, students spend an additional 150 minutes in Tuesday-Thursday classes each semester. This essentially totals to an additional week of Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes.
“I feel enlightened,” petroleum engineering sophomore Misha Gunaldo said. “I didn’t know this information. I figured it out last week.”
Gunaldo said the length of Tuesday-Thursday classes should be reduced by 10 minutes to make the time spent in those classes equal to the time spent in Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes.
Political science and religious studies sophomore Grace Ahrens agreed.
“This explains why I’m so overwhelmed with school,” Ahrens said.
Clay Benton, the senior associate registrar in the Office of the University Registrar, said the University’s academic calendar is set up that way because there has to be a minimum of 2,100 minutes of total semester class time for a three-hour course.
Holidays also affect the ways the calendar is organized, Benton said.
“Depending on how the holidays fall on some semesters, you’re going to get an extra Tuesday-Thursday [class] or Monday-Wednesday-Friday [class],” Benton said.
For example, Benton said students only miss Thursday and Friday classes during Thanksgiving break every year, which affects the total amount of time that class is in session that semester.
Gunaldo said this information will only affect the students who choose to enroll in classes that meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“I feel like most people won’t take Tuesday-Thursday classes,” Gunaldo said. “A whole 10 minutes [of additional class time per week] makes a big difference in whether I go to class or not. At the same time, I feel like people won’t care because they only have to go to class two times a week rather than three. I think it just depends on your personal preference.”
Students bring up this fact periodically, but not as often as they used to because the University’s academic calendars have been pretty stationary, Benton said.
“You will actually have slightly more time in the classroom for a Tuesday-Thursday class for this fall semester, but in another semester, it could shift and flow,” Benton said.
Things like web-based courses and class cancellations due to weather delays are also taken into consideration when making the academic calendar, according to Benton.
“It’s really hard just depending on how the semester plays out to get it exact,” Benton said.
Ahrens said the Office of the University Registrar should tell students that their Tuesday-Thursday classes might be longer.
Gunaldo said students should get compensated for these 10 extra minutes they are spending in the classroom each week.
“If you’re in class for an extra week, then you should get a few more hours than what you were getting originally from that class,” Gunaldo said.
Benton said it’s important to remember the University has a required 2,100-hour minimum for courses that award students three credit hours.
The Registrar’s office has already published the Spring 2020 calendar and is working on the 2020-2021 academic calendar.