I have taken almost every kind of schedule GHC offers. I have had a full load during a 15 week semester. I’ve taken the max amount of hours. I’ve done what we call “Maymester” and full summer. I started my freshman year with an eight-week course, and hybrid classes are no stranger to me. After all of that, I have had the opportunity to experience remote learning because March 12, 2020, changed everything.

Summer classes are often overlooked, but they have been most rewarding in my experience. Maymester is fun because you accomplish so much in such a short period of time. But a word of advice, you have no life other than school for those three weeks. This quick summer course begins on May 17 and grades are due on June 9. So it’s a semesters’ worth of class that goes by before you know it.

I took two classes, and one of them was a hybrid class (we only read the textbook and went to lab). It seemed to take a lot more of my time. The other was a literature class. I loved taking this class during May because we went through condensed versions of the text and consumed so much content in a bite-sized format. I do not recommend taking more than two classes.

I took a Full Summer Session, which goes through most of June and July. I took two classes completely online. I liked this because I still got to go on summer vacation with my family and didn’t have to get behind on my degree plan. Summer gives a catch-up period so you don’t have to cram as much into the Spring and Fall semesters. I highly recommend summer classes.

You can also break up the summer and take just the June or July Session. These are only one month long. Since I took four classes over the summer, I still got full-time financial aid even though the classes were broken up.

GHC also offers eight-week classes. These are a quarter instead of a semester. The eight-week class I took was a Special Topics class [GHXX]. It was fun, and since it ended mid-semester, there was less pressure during final exams week at the end of the semester. Experiment with your schedule and change it up a bit

Late Start Classes are something students can now sign up for. Instead of the typical 16 week semester, there are 10 week and eight-week classes that start in February and March.

It’s important to remember the school year is more than Fall and Spring. GHC has classes at so many different times to best work around your schedule. These odd times are something I’ve taken advantage of in college and it’s made my experience unique. It’s also helped me graduate on time and with less stress.