![\"Students](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/TFL-L-NSU-CONDENSED-LEARNING-03.jpg\")
Students from Nova Southeastern University study prior to finals week in the Alvin Sherman Library, Research, and Information Technology Center in Davie, Florida. (Marlee Card\/Nova Southeastern University)<\/p>\nA major shift in learning is underway at some of South Florida\u2019s universities.<\/p>\n
Schools such as Nova Southeastern University in Davie and St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens are heralding condensed learning, offering, for example, eight-week instead of the traditional 16-week courses.<\/p>\n
Some students appreciate the change, while others find it challenging to manage their time.<\/p>\n
Kaylyn Lee, an NSU sophomore with a double major in psychology and criminal justice, is taking the online half-term CRJU 2000 \u2013 Constitutional Issues for her Bachelor\u2019s in Criminal Justice in the Abraham S. Fischler College of Education & School of Criminal Justice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d say it cuts your stress time down in half because you only have eight weeks to worry about versus 16 weeks,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n
Students from Nova Southeastern University study prior to finals week in the Alvin Sherman Library, Research, and Information Technology Center in Davie, Florida. (Marlee Card\/Nova Southeastern University)<\/p>\n
At NSU, half-term courses are eight weeks, which can be taken in person or online, depending on what the course description offers.<\/p>\n
Michael McCall, career and academic success coach for the Center of Academic and Professional Success, said NSU implemented half-term courses to help undergraduate students keep up with their degree completion.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a lot of our students in the natural sciences, things like biology, marine biology and chemistry \u2014 those types of majors usually require very high math requirements, and sometimes students need to catch up on their math to maintain their degree of progress,\u201d McCall said. \u201cSo to satisfy that need, the math department offers a lot of half-term courses in lower-level math. So things like college algebra, pre-calculus, trigonometry, there are half-term versions of those courses, so that way students can do like two math classes in one semester.\u201d<\/p>\n
At St. Thomas University, the organizational leadership program offers four-week and eight-week courses.<\/p>\n
Patricia Bloodworth, assistant professor in the Biscayne College for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and the organizational leadership program director for St. Thomas, said the student population has a faster option to earn degrees.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s great for the students, because a large portion of our student population is trying to get their degrees and finish quickly,\u201d Bloodworth said.<\/p>\n
The change does have its challenges.<\/p>\n
Bloodworth said students need to stay on top of the term courses because of their accelerated pace.<\/p>\n
Gerasim Borodin, senior double-major in international business and sports administration at St. Thomas, said the accelerated pace requires sophisticated time management. However, he has applied those skills and has been able to make time for his other activities.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, as an athlete in the school, [term courses] just gave me more freedom,\u201d Borodin said. \u201cMore time to focus on my other classes or to focus on my athletic achievements.\u201d<\/p>\n
This article was contributed as part of a South Florida Sun Sentinel writing workshop in coordination with Nova Southeastern Universiy.<\/p>\n
![\"Students](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/TFL-L-NSU-CONDENSED-LEARNING-01.jpg\")
Students from Nova Southeastern University study prior to finals week in the Alvin Sherman Library, Research, and Information Technology Center in Davie, Florida. (Marlee Card\/Nova Southeastern University)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A major shift in learning is underway at some of South Florida\u2019s universities. Schools such as Nova Southeastern…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[506,19412,113,28,249,251,250,114,115,109],"class_list":["post-65357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-broward-county","tag-davie","tag-education","tag-florida","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}