Programs of less than a semester now account for almost half of all students studying abroad.
GVSU has one of the highest study abroad participation rates in the nation, and nearly 15 of the programs cost less than a semester on campus.
Siegel added that "anyone with less than a semester's worth of either Postminimalism 101 or Absurdism 102 can come up with dancing dwarves, one-armed men, psychic detectives, psycho killers, llamas in the waiting room and hints of incest and necrophilia", and felt that a reliance on surrealism made Lynch seem to be a "one trick pony".
But six grand for a semester-long learning experience, even if you add airfare and $1,400 worth of injections (insurance didn't pay a dime), was less expensive than a semester at most colleges, and we hoped it would prepare him pedagogically for the pillars of American higher ed, beer pong and freshman comp.
For Mr. Spitzer's weekly seminar, which he taught from fall 2009 to spring 2012, he was paid slightly less than $5,000 a semester, which he donated to the school after other professors said it was on the high side of what adjuncts earn.
But the students would pay much less than the $900 a semester they now typically pay for textbooks.
"I paid about $350 a semester, less than $2,000 to acquire the additional skills," said Mr. Sullivan, who obtained his certificate in geospatial technology in December.
"Enforcing strikes is difficult to do, at least at first," he says, "but it's a lot less difficult than failing a semester.
There is consensus that apprenticeship along the lines of medical school -- students learn the science of medicine in the classroom, then practice it in a hospital, supervised by faculty doctors -- is a better model than traditional student teaching, which is often done for a semester or less and is loosely supervised, if at all, by university faculty.
Active-learning environments such as those found in a flipped classroom are known to increase student performance, although how these gains are realized over the course of a semester is less well understood.
