By Erica Carcamo
Reporter

The transition into semester system is quickly approaching for CSU Bakersfield.
Students are gearing up for graduation before the conversion while others will be graduating after. For the students wanting to graduate before converting, the university will be offering more classes for the summer session of 2015 and 2016.
Dr. Kathleen Knutzen, vice president for student affairs, further explains the expansion of summer classes.
“[We want] to provide students who want an opportunity to finish their degree while still on the quarter system” said Dr. Knutzen, “Students don’t have to do it, but we just want to allow them that option”.
Adding more classes will be beneficial to those who desire early graduation. They can precisely manage their time and courses just as if they were to do through the regular academic quarter.
Dr. Knutzen mentions that it is an extra budget to run a larger summer session such as the one coming up. Extra courses weren’t added to prior summer quarters because it would be expensive.
Though the cost for adding more classes to the summer quarter is costly, the “tuition for the summer session will remain the same just like any other quarter” said Dr. Knutzen, “but students do need to be cautious about whether if they have any financial aid left for summer. That is something they need to talk to their financial aid office about”.
Classes that fill up quickly during the year along with major courses will be purposely added to the summer session for 2015 and 2016.
“We’ve already committed to running two large summer sessions as long as students are interested, so even if we had a smaller enrollment this summer we would still run a larger one next summer to give students that opportunity,” said Dr. Knutzen, “We’ve already committed to that because for those students who really want to push to graduate we want to make sure we have the classes for them to do that”.
Dr. Knutzen then adds, “Fortunately, the president has committed to that to and has supported funding it”.
Dr. Knutzen said there’s not an undergraduate student who can’t find a full load to take this summer, if they wanted to.
In a press release the university put out CSUB is one of the six CSU campuses that do not already follow the semester system.
The other CSU campuses are: Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Cal Poly Pomona, Los Angeles, Hayward and San Bernardino.
The conversion of CSUB from quarter to semester will be in effect starting the academic year of fall 2016.