 "Photo: Glenn Connelly / Photo Editor")
With the semester ending, San Diego State students are starting to plan summer vacations, summer jobs and maybe - not to everyone's liking - summer school.
But with SDSU offering new online summer courses, students may still have time for a summer getaway.
There will be five online courses available to students which include upper and lower division classes that are in high demand.
Four of the five classes are general education classes: Geology 100: Planet Earth, Psychology 101: Introductory Psychology, Recreation 304: Challenges of Leisure and Recreation 404: Cross-Cultural Perspectives of Tourism.
The fifth class, Marketing 370: Marketing, isn't a GE class, but because of its high demand it will be offered to business majors only.
Psychology lecturer Mark Laumakis will be teaching the psychology course online and said that SDSU is in need of online courses.
"This is a way for you during the summer not to lose any ground on academic progress, but you'll be able to do what you normally would be doing," Laumakis said.
Laumakis is also a faculty in residence for Instructional Technology Services and said that ITS worked on designing online courses with faculty who have the experience to teach an online course.
"It's an issue of getting the right match," Laumakis said. "We want to get the right kind of faculty teaching as well."
ITS Director James Frazee said that faculty and students will benefit from more interaction with each other.
"You'll have more interaction with these students than in a face-to-face," he said. "We're excited to see the level of interaction between the instructor and the content of the course."
Frazee and Laumakis both said it comes down to more flexibility.
"But with more flexibility comes more responsibility, and these courses aren't for everybody," Laumakis said.
When students want to register for summer online classes, they'll have to take an online student readiness survey. Some of the questions will be about personal time management skills as well as computer speed and access.
Although some students may get survey results indicating they aren't ready for the course, it will not prohibit them from signing up.
Communications junior Corinne Belletto said she is thinking about taking one of the online courses.
"It's convenient because you don't go to school," Belletto said. "I'd do it because I can do things on my own."
For more information on the online courses visit www.sdsu.edu/schedule/summer08/.
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