Third Wintersession offers many classes to students

631 students were enrolled in the 58 courses offered for the third annual Wintersession which took place from Jan. 25 to 30 this year, according to Undergraduate Student Government Wintersession Committee Head Jacob Cannon ’ 17.

Wintersession is a week-long program thatruns during Intersession each year.

Last year, there were 1,936 registrations for 67 courses, compared to this year's approximately 1,600 registrations, Cannon said. He explained that since the committee didn’t calculate the number of unique participants last year, comparing the participation for the two years would be inappropriate, and added that the numbers for this year comes exclusively from Wintersession courses, while in the past the committee included numbers from courses for other campus centers.

Cannon said the the committee expected this year's program to follow past years’ patterns of success, as more student groups and outside companies expressed interest in offering classes this year.

He noted that this year’s program included a committee to run study breaks and giveaways, a revamped website with a new logo, and a more effective structure to compensate instructors for class materials.

Classes this year included "ASL for Dummies," "Top Gun Bartending," and "Beauty in Color," according to the program website.

Benjamin Dobkin ’16, who led a class titled “Hype 101: Don’t let your memes be dreams; Taking the ridiculous to the mundane,” said he got the idea for the class idea after joking with friends. He added that originally he thought that his idea wouldn’t be accepted.

“It was interesting. I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into,” Dobkin said, describing the course, but added that it was a positive experience, noting that the class was fully enrolled.

However, he added that future Wintersession courses should enforce a penalty for students who do not show up to classes, since a course that’s fully enrolled locks out other students who may have wanted to participate, noting that only seven students came to his classes although 19 registered.

For future programs, Cannon noted that he hopes to see more student groups and University centers sign up to teach a course, and added that more faculty should take part in offering lessons that wouldn’t normally appear on their syllabus.

Katherine Clifton ’15, who created the program with two other U-Councilors, said she drew inspiration for Princeton’s Intersession from similar mid-year programs offered by Williams College, MIT, and Dartmouth.

“We expected there to be maybe a hundred or two hundred people interested for the first year. But then we were surprised–and delighted–that more than a thousand people were involved. That reaffirmed the need for this sort of thing,” Clifton said.

She noted that last year’s program saw a growth of involvement from the graduate student body in both teaching and participating in classes.

“We thought that was a way to encourage dialogue between undergrads and grads,” she said.

Deputy Dean of the Office of Undergraduate Students Thomas Dunne said that although some doubted the program’s success at first, the program has had very high student interest for the past few years.

“Since its inception, we’ve really just been scrambling to meet student demand. Interest is really high, there’s a lot of enthusiasm of the program, the diversity of courses offered is broader than when [it started],” he added.

He noted that the University’s student body has a wide range of experiences and that Wintersession provides an opportunity for students to share those experiences with others.

Clifton said that the Wintersession could potentially be expanded to a two or three-week long program if final exams were held before winter break, an expansion she noted would be interesting to explore in years future.

“[Wintersession]would be a really special time to be on campus and to increase the sense of community across classes while fostering individual initiative. If given more time [the program] could really grow into that,” she said.