#interterm

Next week is the last week of interterm and the first week before the spring semester starts!

Interterm (also known as J-term) this year has been a pretty unique one in terms of length, course offerings, and mode of instruction. It lasts for five weeks, starting on January 4th and ending on February 11th, during which students move into their on-campus housing in staggered arrival time blocks. More four-credit courses are offered and the course selection has a wider range. Students can take classes like Engineering Thermodynamics, Intro to Psych, and Calculus II, which are not typical J-term courses. Moreover, our special 2021 gives us a special, first-ever, remote-only interterm. That said, no classes are in person.

Quarantine in the Ellery

As I briefly mentioned in my first blog, I came back to Smith two weeks ago after spending about ten months in Southern Pennsylvania. Spoiled by the mild winter living so close to Maryland, I forgot how cold Northampton is. Shuddering in the New England wind due to the lack of layers, I still took advantage of my short time of freedom before entering quarantine by taking a tour around the new library.

I spent two long days quarantining in the Ellery before I got released a little after noon on the third day. We had food delivered to our door twice per day (lunch, and then dinner, which included breakfast). (As an entertaining interlude during the solitary hours in the hotel room, the dining hall staff forgot to deliver my lunch on the second day initially. My friends and I collaborated to solve the mystery of the missing meal. In the end, fortunately, I was timely fed.) A fellow Smith by Smithies blogger posted about quarantine food in more detail, which you can read here.

Moving into Chapin House

Drawn towards its central-campus location, the prospects of getting a room with a view of the Paradise Pond (that is sadly not as “beautiful” on the inside), and the excitement of trying different houses and experiencing a new community, I decided to move to Chapin House. Although I did not get my dream room with a south-facing window and a view of the pond, I like my current spacious, sunny dingle (i.e., a double occupancy single room. It is another pandemic special! See below the picture of my room freshly taken today.) I was one of the first three residents to move in. It was oddly quiet the first week, but now with more people moving in, the rooms are being filled slowly and it starts to feel more like a real house!

J-term Latin class: Asinus Aureus

This interterm I am taking LAT 212: Intro to Latin Prose and Poetry with Professor Scott Bradbury. It is a small class of only 9 students, and we meet for 75 minutes each day, five days a week. The course title may be a bit misleading, since we are reading a novel in class: The Golden Ass (or, in a less catchy translation, the Metamorphoses of Apuleius). The story centers around the protagonist Lucius, who is turned into a donkey, hence the title. The Golden Ass is the only ancient Roman novel in Latin to survive in its entirety.

Over the past six weeks (an extended interterm), I have been taking a French literature course. To read about what else I was up to during interterm, click here. (You can also read about all of my past courses here). The full course title is quite a mouthful, but here it is Colloquium in French Studies French Calligraphies: Contemporary Chinese Women's Writing (FRN 230). FRN 230 is the basis of the French studies major and serves as a gateway course for more advanced courses. FRN 230 has a literature designation for Latin Honors and is also a writing-intensive course. (Taking a writing-intensive course is the only specific requirement outside of your major requirements! Well, that is unless you are an engineering major like me). FRN 230 is a topics course that is usually offered twice every semester. 

FRN 230 is a normal 4 credit course but was accelerated to fit into less than half of a semester. This meant we met for two hours a day four days a week. Okay, we didn’t actually meet the entire two hours each class. Rather we often had half group discussions at the end of class and only had to be on Zoom for our group. We had class Monday through Thursday and had papers to turn in most Fridays.  

In the course, we read a novel, a graphic novel, excerpts from other texts, and watched a film. The excerpts were made available through a free course pack, which I really appreciated. The full texts we read were Jeune Fille Modèle and Banana Girl. All of the texts were in French, but the film was in Chinese (which I do not know) with English subtitles. Despite the title of the course, one of the works was written by a male writer. Most of the works were at least semi-autobiographical. All of the authors are first-generation immigrants to France from China or Cambodia. Through the texts, we studied the cultural revolution and the concept of cultural hybridity.  

A typical night’s work was some reading with help of a reading guide (containing key vocabulary and comprehension questions) and a reading journal entry. There were also discussion questions to think about for the next day’s class and occasional grammar exercises. Over the term, we had to write four papers of increasing length. In class, we practiced our oral French through discussion of the readings. Additionally, we had to give an oral presentation and had four debates (somewhat formal graded discussions). Even though it was a remote class, we got to learn about calligraphy through a virtual visit to the Smith College Museum of Art and a hands-on workshop. With the exception of those two classes, the course was entirely in French. 

Hi! J Term, or interterm, is a month long break between semesters where you can take limited classes, do an internship, work on research, do a shorter study abroad experience, or just go home and relax! There are many options for J Term, both on and off campus. I recommend checking out Smith’s Lazarus Center if you are interested in internships, or the Lewis Global Studies Center if you are interested in studying abroad. Socially, J Term is a great extended break from academics and coming back to campus in the spring I always feel relaxed. Thank you for asking, and I hope this helps!

Every year during winter break Smith offers interterm classes, also called j-term that usually begin the first week of January, and end the week before the spring semester starts. Its a great opportunity to take classes that are outside of your major, spend some extra time on campus, or just take something fun! The classes offered are usually 1-2 credits, but some more intensive classes are the regular 4 credits. For years that aren’t in the middle of a global pandemic all students are allowed to return to campus at any point during interterm regardless of whether they are taking a class or not.

For Interterm 2020 (last year) I took a week-long, 1 credit class on New England ecology and outdoor education called Interpreting New England Landscapes. I got to combine my interests of the outdoors and teaching, and the class culminated in our organizing a lesson plan and teaching the sixth graders from the Smith campus school what we had learned over the week. Pictured below is some of the stuff we collected for them (and us!) to look at under the microscope in the MacLeish Field Station classroom. This included leaves, needles, fungi, different types of scat, and bark from various trees. 

My favorite part of this class was getting to traipse around the woods all day with 10 other smithies and our professors and call it a class. We got to learn so much about animal tracks, plant identification, connecting to nature more, and even saw a porcupine! 

Well, I am so glad you asked! I have short break - I got home from finals on the 23rd and I resume track practice at Smith by January 8th. I don't like to be idle, so I don't mind! Here's what I have planned:

Blogging, of course!

Doing some strength and conditioning workouts. After a year with our strength coach Jake, I've gotten comfortable with lifting and I really love it!

Doing a one day, no credit J-term course called Canvas and Cookies. I LOVE a good paint night, but I love cookies more :)

Celebrating Christmas at home with my family

Catching up with my friends before we part ways again. A movie night is long overdue and I havent seen Star Wars yet...

Brush up on my French before I dive back into classes in next semester

SLEEP

Smith has a period of time between the first and second semester where students are encouraged to do a variety of things - intern, work, take a class, or just relax at home! A J-Term internship kind of fell into my lap. A class of 2016 alum encouraged me to apply for a J-Term internship at Verité. Verité is an organization that does work surrounding labor trafficking. Shortly after applying I received an email telling me that I got the internship in the Amherst office! Though my break was cut short, I was really excited to do this sort of work. 

At Verité I was a Research Intern. My work was focused on a project in Sub-Saharan Africa. I wrote a country report for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. The country reports allows companies to have a detailed set of information pertaining to their supply chain so that they can make more ethical decisions. I also did research on how mobile technologies are able to locate and help labor trafficking victims. Sadly, I wasn’t there for long but I really enjoyed my time at Verité. 

Happy new year! Here’s to a brighter 2021!

Interterm (also known as J-Term) is an optional term between the fall and spring semesters. In a normal academic year, interterm is three weeks long and mostly offers one and two-credit courses. Furthermore, the campus is usually open to all students (at no additional cost) regardless of whether they are enrolled in a course. Last year, I spent the entire interterm on campus and took two one-credit entrepreneurship courses (which you can read more about here). 

This year, interterm has been extended to six weeks. This means that there are a number of accelerated full credit (four credit) courses offered. This may seem like a special opportunity, but in reality, many of the classes (including mine) were moved from the fall semester.

This interterm, I am taking a four-credit French literature course on contemporary Francophone women writers of Chinese origin. The course meets for two hours four days a week. I am only a week in, but so far I have been enjoying the readings and general class format. At the end of the term, I will write more extensively about the course. 

In addition to my French class, I am working with my computer science professor to organize a programming competition for high school students. I am actively involved in writing and testing problems and figuring out the logistics of our remote competition. You can check out our website here.