The Mayan calendar predicts the world to end in 2012, or at least that’s what we’ve been hearing.
But, if that doesn’t happen, Sinclair will be transitioning to semesters in the Fall 2012.
Students are advised to see an academic advisor to prepare for the transition, according to Project Director of Semester Transition Allison Rhea.
“Bar nothing—the most important thing students can do is go make a MAP [my academic plan],” Rhea said. “Students should not wait to go and see an academic advisor. Students have to realize that not only Sinclair is transitioning to semesters, but they are too.”
To encourage students to go and see an advisor, the Semester Transition department and the Advising Center are collaborating to sponsor the weeklong event titled: Semesters Week, which will run the week of Oct. 9 until the 15.
The Academic Advising Center will take students on a walk-in basis all week, on normal operating hours during Semesters Week, according to Rhea.
During Semesters Week, the “Semester Team” as Rhea prefers to call them, will be giving away items to students around campus as part of an advertising/information campaign that she likes to call, “Semester Swarm.”
“During Semesters Week, we will be locating where students hangout on campus and target those areas to pass out the giveaway items,” Rhea said.
Giveaway items will include: shirts, cups containing either $20 gift certificates to the Bookstore, $10 certificates to Aramark or answers to frequently asked questions pertaining to the transition.
As part of a recent development to the Advising Center, now all first-year students are required to visit the First-Year Advising Center, where new students can set up their MAP.
“When students are done taking their placement test… they now get scheduled to see a first-year advisor, and they then should leave with a MAP,” Rhea said.
Not only are students preparing for the transition, but faculty has been preparing as well.
“Faculty has done a boatload of work over the last year,” said Rhea. “Converting the curriculum from quarters to semesters is a major job.”
Faculty is participating in a workshop called, Teaching to the Rhythm of Semesters, which according to Rhea, will help them with the transition.
If students have a question about semesters they can email their questions to semesters@sinclair.edu.
“If a student has a question [about semesters] they can ask on Facebook, on the email or at the call center, we just don’t want them to ignore it because they need to know,” Rhea said.
As for the Mayan prediction, Rhea offered some assurance for students.
“Interestingly enough, I was in Beliz this spring and went to a Mayan ruin where a Mayan young man took us on a tour. This young man said that we have interpreted it incorrectly. He told me that what it means is that the world will change. There’s a cycle, and we will be moving to a different cycle, and things will be very different in this world than they were before. And I took that to mean, because Semesters were coming.”