Hi! My name is Stephanie, and I am a fourth-year student at UWSP, pursuing my BFA in Acting, as well as a minor in Arts Management. When I was a sophomore, I decided to take a Winterim course, and had a very positive experience.
When looking at my Degree Progress Report, I realized I still hadn’t met a specific Gen Ed requirement because the course I needed was offered at the same time as one of my required major classes. Luckily, the same Gen Ed credit that I needed was also offered as a Winterim course, so I decided that the best plan for me was to take that course during winter break.
I took an online Geology class for my Winterim. In all honesty, I was pretty nervous for the class to start. For one thing, I didn’t know much about geology, and I knew that Winterim courses had a faster timeline than a class I would normally take during a regular semester. I was also intimidated by it being a fully online class because I felt like I was going to struggle with the material. However, my worries quickly went away as soon as the class started, and I can easily say now that I enjoyed the course.
Winterim courses are usually about three weeks long, and within that three weeks, you are expected to take on an entire semester’s worth of material. It sounds very intimidating at first, however, the Winterim courses are designed to help you succeed. In my experience, I was not overwhelmed by the pace of my class at all. In fact, I feel like the way in which my course was set up actually worked really well. I felt like the assignments were organized in a way that made sense, and it honestly helped me to stay on top of my work rather than fall behind.
I was also very impressed with how available my professor was whenever I or any of my classmates needed help. I learned very early on that just because I was taking this class online and during the winter did NOT mean that I was alone. In fact, I was far from it! Your professors are here to help you succeed, and in my Winterim experience, they were very accommodating to my needs. When in doubt, just ask for help, and trust that they are there for you.
Overall, I had a great experience taking a Winterim course, and I am very happy that I took one. I would reccomend taking a Winterim course to anyone who needs a bit more freedom in their regular semester schedule. Taking a Winterim course when I did truly helped me to get on the specific track to graduation that I wanted to be on.
