Students Complete Wesleyan’s First Winter Session, Career Center Programs

This month, more than 40 Wesleyan students completed a semester-long class in less than two weeks.

As part of Wesleyan’s first Winter Session, held Jan. 8-21, students took advantage of a quieter campus and a long winter break to focus intensively on just one course.

“During Winter Session, students can connect more closely not just with the topics they’re studying, but also with their instructor and classmates,” said Jennifer Curran, interim director of Continuing Studies.

During this pilot session, Wesleyan offered four courses: “Introduction to Computer Programming,” taught by James Lipton, associate professor of computer science; “U.S. Foreign Policy,” taught by Doug Foyle, associate professor of government; “Applied Data Analysis,” taught by Lisa Dierker, professor of psychology; and “Graphic Novel,” taught by visiting faculty Will Eggers.

On Jan. 16, Winter Session student Tessa Bellone ’16 worked on her own research project – analyzing an association between a country’s income per capita and carbon dioxide emissions. The prospective biology major enrolled in Dierker’s “Applied Data Analysis” to learn more about statistical software.

“Having the ability to analyze data and understand statistical software is really important in a lot of fields, and it will definitely come in handy since I hope to do research in a biology lab while at Wesleyan and maybe beyond,” she said. “The class is pretty intensive, but class size also is really small, so the setting is intimate and there is a lot of personal interaction with the professor. I would definitely consider taking another Winter Session course next year.”

The small classes met for five hours each day over the course of eight days, allowing students to complete a full-semester course in only two weeks.

During the winter recess, Wesleyan’s Career Center also hosted Winter on Wyllys, a variety of career-related initiatives. Career Center staff presented two concurrent, week-long intensive programs: CareerLab for those preparing to enter the job market, and Choosing Good Work for those students trying to make sense of their options and personal goals. The Career Center, with Alumni and Parent Relations, offered a WEShadow Externship Program and alumni speaker series.

And, for the first time, Wesleyan offered Fullbridge Internship Edge, which provides intensive training on business fundamentals.

More photos of Wesleyan’s Winter Session and Winter on Wyllys are below: