Lazy, Hazy Days Of Summer? Ha! WSU Students Back For Summer Session

Four days after crunching through her last final exam of the spring semester, Jackie McArthur was back in the college classroom.

“I wish there was a break,” she said afterward, sounding tired. “I wish we had a week off.”

It’s not to be for 5,000 or so Washington State University students as they take part in what has become an annual rite on the Palouse: summer school.

Eager to finish their degrees - or simply trying to avoid heading home for the summer - a growing number of WSU students are keeping their noses to the grindstone on a nearly year-round basis.

The number of students taking summer classes rose by more than one-fifth in the past five years, jumping from 4,072 students in 1991 to 4,941 last summer, said Linda Schoepflin, WSU’s assistant to the director of summer session.

Final numbers for the session that started Monday won’t be available until today, but Schoepflin said early registration was keeping pace with last year’s figures.

Students are also taking more classes each session, she said, choosing from 937 courses offered in three overlapping sessions that stretch into August.

“It’s an option for students,” she said. “Number one, if there are no jobs available, they’ll go to summer school.”

Some students work during the spring and fall semesters, falling behind in their credit hours as a result, she said.

With summer classes, said Schoepflin, “they can still graduate in a timely way.”

Bonnie Joy, a history major from Alameda, Calif., sees the summer classes as a way of catching up on credits required when she changed majors and as a way to save money. Because undergraduate summer credits cost $150 each for both in- and out-of-state students, Joy figures she is faring better than when she pays the more expensive out-of-state tuition during the regular school year.

Angelica Reyna, a senior from Mabton, figures she loses out in the summer because the $1,500 that buys her 10 credits in the summer would buy her up to 18 credits in the fall or spring.

But the clock’s ticking, she said.

“I want to finish really fast so I can go out and get a job already,” she said.

Mike Walker is of the same mind, using his time at WSU as a stepping stone between 10 years in the Canadian Football League and a second career as a school principal.

“I’m just taking it so I can get done,” said Walker, a former Cougar defensive tackle.

Walker will take educational administration classes in the third session, a traditional time for vacationing teachers to return to the Pullman campus. Meanwhile, his wife Kristen was up at 7:30 Monday morning for class this session.

That’s the only way the couple can coordinate taking care of their two children over the summer, she said.

“I wish they offered more night classes,” she said.

, DataTimes