Some professors—such as Henri Zerner, who teaches History of Art and Architecture 10—say that the new semester schedule does not allow enough time to cover course material from previous semesters.

“I don’t like the new calendar,” Zerner says. “I think everything is extremely rushed, and students don’t really have enough time to absorb whatever the course was about.”

Zerner adds that students also had less time to work on end-of-term projects, such as final papers.

But David J. Malan ’99, who teaches the popular course Computer Science 50, says he adjusted his lesson plans and assignment due dates to reflect the calendar changes. Students were asked to submit final project proposals—which range from coding Google Android or iPhone applications, to designing Web sites—before Thanksgiving, or two weeks earlier than in past years.

“I think it worked out much better,” Malan says. “Everything was still very fresh in their minds.”

TIME MANAGEMENT

Like Baldwin, most students who left the bulk of their work until the end of the semester say they faced more work and tighter deadlines than in past years.

Yoseph S. Ayele ’11 admits that he could have reduced some of the stress with better planning.

“I think it takes some getting used to from our side,” Ayele says of the compressed time constraints. “Before we used to take a break [in the beginning of 10-day reading period] before studying for finals.”

R.J. Jenkins, the head teaching fellow for the popular “Lit and Sex” course English 154, says the loss of holiday break before exams was “really felt” by upperclassmen accustomed to the old schedule.

Freshmen, on the other hand, had a “very easy time” with the new calendar, Jenkins says, as it is “the only calendar they’ve known.”

Despite student complaints about the shortened semester, Dean of Undergraduate Education and Cabot House Master Jay M. Harris reports that the College saw the highest average grades in its history, with an increase in grade point average of one-hundredth of a point.

“Student performance overall did not suffer in any way,” he says. “That doesn’t mean a specific student was not thoroughly overwhelmed.”

Harris adds that he felt many of the concerns students raised may have been unfairly attributed to the calendar changes and that part of the problem lies in work habits, such as procrastination.

“Students should either not save as much [work] for reading period as they used to or not have as long a ‘Camp Harvard’ as they used to,” Harris says.