#j-term

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.

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. 

To answer your question in short: yes, you can go abroad more than once! There are numerous ways to study abroad at Smith: whether that’s for a semester or a whole academic year (typically undertaken during the junior year but can be undertaken during your senior year pending the Dean of the College’s permission), during J-term (the month-long period between Fall and Spring semester), or over the Summer. I’ve personally already taken advantage of opportunities to study abroad during these past two summers. In between my second and first year, I crafted an independent study of french language courses and completed an intensive dance training program in Brussels, Belgium. This summer, I  returned from Avignon, France, where I completed a credit-bearing French Literature and Theater Studies program. These two opportunities were made possible through an International Experience Grant, which funds students between $250 and $3,500 to complete credit or non-crediting bearing international projects which deepen a student’s academic engagement.

In terms of applying for a JYA program (either Smith’s programs in Geneva, Paris, Florence, Hamburg or one of 50+ other pre-approved programs), how many programs you choose to apply to depends on where you are interested in studying. If you intend to apply for Smith’s programs, the best way to ensure that you are accepted into your program of choice is to make sure you meet the eligibility requirements and have strong letters of recommendation from a professor who knows you well in your discipline of study.

I personally applied to multiple programs because I wanted to spend my year studying at two different locations in London and Geneva, each for a different major (dance and french studies respectively). The first program I applied to was Trinity Laban Conservatory of Dance in London, which is a Smith approved program requiring I apply directly to the conservatory. Since Trinity’s admissions acceptance rate are different than Smith’s, I wasn’t sure if I would be accepted into the program so I concurrently applied to the Smith JYA in Paris program as a backup. In total, I submitted three different applications: one for the Smith semester program in Geneva, one for the Smith JYA program in Paris, and one for the semester study abroad program at Trinity Laban. Luckily everything worked out in my favor, so I will be heading to London in September and Geneva in the Spring!

Another option to study abroad is through the Global FLEX program (FLEX stands for Global Faculty-Led Experience). These opportunities offer faculty-designed-and-led short-term global learning travel programs (1—3 weeks) during the winter, spring, or summer breaks. My best friend is participating in a FLEX program in India next J-term called the Global Health Seminar!

There are plenty more resources and opportunities to explore through our Office for International Study website.

I hope you find this helpful!

https://www.gofundme.com/qbzzu6-sarahs-jterm-class-to-cuba

I've set up this goFundMe because my school, Randolph Macon College, has given me a wonderful oppurntinty to visit and learn about the culture, hisotry, and society of Cuba.

For starters, Interterm is Smith’s J-Term. For those unfamiliar with the term J-Term, it’s basically an optional academic term held during the month of January. During this time, students can be at Smith at no additional cost. During Interterm, athletes are back for practices and other students are back to take classes or just to hang out with friends and enjoy Northampton. The courses offered tend to be one or two credits opposed to the normal four.  

This year, I decided to take Entrepreneurship I: Introduction to Entrepreneurship (IDP 155) and Entrepreneurship II: Entrepreneurship in Action (IDP 156). Each course was a week-long, worth one-credit, and graded Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory (S/U). The courses met from 9-12 and had an hour or less of homework per day. One day, the course ran an extra hour so that Smith alumna Margaret Nyamumbo ‘11 could tell us about her Kenyan coffee business, Kahawa 1893. To read more about her story, click here. I decided to take these courses because they seemed interesting and applicable to my major. Furthermore, many of the other Interterm courses are hard to get into as a first-year due to the caps. 

Our precourse homework for IDP 155 was to respond to the following prompt: “Reflect on your desired impact on the world, that is, what motivates and drives you?”. I think this is a valuable exercise for anyone. On the first day of class, we were introduced to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). From there, we used our precourse reflections to select an SDG of interest and ultimately to form teams. My team focused on quality education (SDG 4). 

Once teams were formed, we brainstormed profitable businesses that we could create to address the problem at hand. From there, we narrowed our focus and pitched our initial idea. Throughout the week we received feedback from peers and the instructors. We used this feedback along with tools like the Idea Napkin and the Value Proposition Canvas to improve our idea. Through the lecture portion, we learned about different types of entrepreneurs, effectuation, and creating an entrepreneurial mindset. IDP 155 culminated with each team pitching their ideas to the class and a few guests. Finally, each person got the chance to invest (fake money) into the other ventures. 

In IDP 156, we used tools like the SWOT Analysis and the Business Model Canvas to further develop our ventures from IDP 155. Specifically, we got more into the finances of our ventures. For homework, we learned more about entrepreneurship through case studies. In class, we also did some fun activities unrelated to our specific ventures. For instance, my team had 5 minutes to come up with a pitch for “steelwool sweaters” while another team had to pitch “cardboard umbrellas”. The lesson was that no idea is a bad idea. Like IDP 155, IDP 156 culminated in final (vastly improved) pitches and a round of investing. In summary, IDP 155 and IDP 156 together serve as a project-based crash course in entrepreneurship. A key takeaway is that entrepreneurial skills are powerful in business, but also applicable to many other fields. 

Hey there! Interterm, or J-term, is the time between the fall and spring semesters. It is a time when all students do not have to be on campus, but can be after Jan 3 (or whenever winter break happens to end). There are lots of 1 credit classes offered with lots of different subjects, as well as study abroad trips for one or two weeks! This can be a good time to make up credit deficiencies or to just spend time on campus without the stress of classwork.