Winter session continues to grow in enrollments, course offerings

4 Jan 2016

Students jumping in snow on the Drillfield — Students continue to embrace winter session to get in courses and stay ahead.

BLACKSBURG — Virginia Tech’s 2016 winter session is underway with approximately 2,075 students enrolled in 127 different courses — a 25 percent increase in student enrollments from last year.

“I am encouraged by the growth of enrollments and interest in winter session from students, faculty, and the university community,” said Michael Herndon, the director of summer and winter sessions. “I like to term it the ‘winter session advantage’ as students have an opportunity to catch up or get ahead on their studies, as well as graduate early.”

Winter session students have four available course options:

Virtual campus – Students perform all coursework online. This option has garnered the highest enrollment from students
Blended – Students are offered the opportunity to do work both in-class and online
Winter experience – Courses offered outside of Virginia Tech’s main campus, both domestically and internationally
In-residence – Daily classes which students attend at Virginia Tech’s main campus in Blacksburg over the course of the 12 to 15-day winter session term.

All courses run until Jan. 16; virtual, blended, and winter experience courses began on Dec. 27 and residential courses start today, Jan. 4.

The year's winter experience program features 15 different programs offering unique opportunities, including:

A U.S. Food and Nutrition Policy Seminar in Washington D.C. through the Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise;
A Fashion Study Tour in New York City through the Department of Apparel, Housing, and Resource Management;
A practicum experience in Charlotte, N.C., through a partnership between Wells Fargo and the Department of Finance, Insurance and Business Law.

There are also 12 international opportunities being offered. Students in various fields will participate in courses abroad in New Zealand, Ecuador, Myanmar (Burma), Australia, Dominican Republic, Italy, Panama, Costa Rica, and Australia.

Additionally, there are several unique new course offerings both virtually and residentially this session:

HUM 1604: Intro Humanities and Arts is an Area 2 English Curriculum for Liberal Education focused entirely on the HBO hit series, Game of Thrones. In this course, students will compare the epic TV show to medieval history, myth and legend, in addition to comparing and contrasting the show to other depictions of medievalism throughout television, movies, and literature.
SBIO 2004: Computer Aided Design in Packaging will use state-of-the-art, $3.4 million dollar computer software to allow students to develop their own packaging. This project-oriented course will task students with drawing design ideas from the real world.

Visit the Virginia Tech winter session website for more information.