Impact of the academic semester structure on students/teachers outcomes

Abstract

Although the academic year structure in higher education may differ from country to country as well as from different universities and colleges, most of them divide the academic calendar in two semesters. The courses offered during a semester follow two basic models: Intensive or parallel. In the intensive model the courses are taken one by one or at least two, in part of the semester, during one or two months, followed by another set of courses in the other part of semester in a sequential order. The parallel model means that many courses, in a number of 4 or 6 are given in the same semester and equal set of courses starts in the beginning of the following semester, with the same duration as the previous. Therefore, the first model means that the semester is divided by two periods while in the second, the semester holds intact.