At BSM we have always had two semesters consisting of four quarters. While this has worked for the past 50 years, I think it’s time we move on to a more modern take that a lot of schools around us are moving toward: trimesters. Having trimesters means there would be three semesters instead of two, which splits up the year into three-month semesters. I think this makes more sense because there are nine months, give or take, in the school year, and having trimesters would split up the year evenly and I think would make for better organization.
Trimesters would also make room for students to pick more classes. With two semesters we don’t have much room to take more than four elective classes and this can cause students to miss out on some things they really would like or want to try. Benilde-St. Margaret’s offers so many fun electives, that range from painting to computer designing. With trimesters we could have more time for more flexible schedules. I think it’s very important, especially in high school, for students to have the opportunity to try something new, who knows this could maybe lead to students finding a new passion or something they really love and continue to do.
With trimesters, though, I understand that would mean more deadlines for teachers and three times where we would have finals rather than two. However, I would argue that most teachers have a ‘midterm’ so we are doing four finals a year. I think with three trimesters instead of semesters, this would make the number of final tests go down from two in every class to one or maybe even none in specific classes. Say you have eight math chapters to get through. With trimesters, you could do three chapters in trimesters one and two, leaving fewer chapters in trimester three. As students tend to get sick of school the workload would slow down at the same time they tend to try less and this could overall benefit the students’ grades.
Overall I think trimesters would benefit teachers, students, and staff. It would cause more elective classes to be taken causing students to try new things and find something they really enjoy. This would also help teachers plan out their year more evenly and have fewer tests making for less stress among students and staff. Trimesters benefit everyone and that is why I think trimesters beat semesters.