Summer swots

January 05, 2007

Summer swots

While you dip into the latest thriller, spare a thought for those who’ve chosen
textbooks as their summer reading. At Massey University alone, thousands of people are using the summer break to start, complete, catch up or get ahead with their study. There are 240 papers on offer at the University’s three campuses over the summer, with nearly 7, 600 enrolments.

The Director of National Student Relations Dr Pat Sandbrook says around half of those studying in Summer School are doing their work on campus, at Wellington, Palmerston North or Auckland. The rest are staying at home and doing their papers extramurally. Conversely some regular extramural students have used their holidays to do papers on campus, many of them meeting University staff face-to-face for the first time.

This month the University is also running 31 contact courses for its regular extramural students, including a statistics course in Christchurch,

And Dr Sandbrook says many of the University’s around one thousand doctoral students are working on their PhD theses over the summer. “We also have 1700 Masters students. Experience tells us that about half of them will also work through the break, many of them on campus.”

He says the growth in the popularity of Summer School at Massey has been nothing short of phenomenal. “In 2004 enrolments at all campuses topped 1,840. This summer they’ve reached 7,582.

The typical summer swots are taking one or two papers, usually for professional development or to complete their degree more quickly. Others use the break to try something new.

“There’s something for everybody,” says Dr Sandbrook. “The biggies are always the business papers, including maths and statistics. This year we were also well oversubscribed for creative arts courses on offer in Wellington, and were able to provide extra papers such as the life drawing course to meet demand.

“Courses range from Venture Capital and Private Equity to Writing for Children. There are offerings in everything from accounting and aviation to occupational safety and health, birthing and early parenting to te reo and te hokinga mai (repatriation), sports business, e-business strategies, and dispute resolution to chemistry.”

Massey’s summer school runs from November through until mid February.

ENDS

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