Work with me here… imagine a heavy, deliberate sigh.

[Sigh]

Picture me rolling my eyes and crossing my arms.

I am frustrated, confused and aggravated.

Why?

Semester conversion.

More specifically?

Those damn mini summer semesters.

If you [the student] are confused about these pint-sized, seven week, summer semesters, you are not alone. In fact, I will give you an example that happened prior to me sitting down and writing this column, not like I was procrastinating or anything.

On Tuesday evening at 6:30 p.m., the editorial board of The Northeastern News sat down to discuss how we, as a student organization, would convert our constitution over to semesters. With Heather Allen, semester conversion connoisseur at the helm, the meeting proved to go smoothly, until we hit the explanation of — you guessed it, the summer semesters.

Prior to the meeting, I had planned on writing my column on the summer semesters and how Student Government Vice President of Academic Affairs Andres Vargas said that the semester conversion office should publicize EVERYTHING better, but especially explain how the summers will change in the upcoming years.

But let me reemphasize, this was before the meeting.

What some people may not realize is that every student (minus freshmen) will either be on co-op or in classes for both summer semesters. Now granted, there will always be an exception or two, but hear me out here. Now that co-ops are standardized to six month stints, a rotation will either begin in January (spring semester) and end in the middle of June (the end of summer 1 and the beginning of summer 2). The other co-op rotation will begin in mid-June (summer two) and will wrap up in December (the end of the fall semester).

Easy enough?

The administration thinks so. The semester conversion office thinks so, and I thought so, before I heard myself attempting to explain it to my peers.

It was not that easy. It is very confusing. The hardest thing for our E-board to determine was how we would run elections, which we now do quarterly. But with the summer split in two, two questions arise; Will there be an equal number of students on campus in each semester? And if there is not, will students be forced to alter their rotations?

Justified quandaries, correct?

I agree. But I have bad news. I don’t have the answers and I am as stumped as you.

The thing is, though, there will not be any answers, not until all the kinks get worked out of the system and the only way to work out the kinks, is to go through the motions. And you know what that means, for some it could be a bumpy ride.

We here at The News came to the same conclusion. Although we would like to revamp the ole’ constitution in one swift meeting, we came to the realization that will not be happening. Unfortunately the theory has been proved that semester conversion will affect every aspect of this fine institution.

So we decided that we will group the summers together in terms of electing editors, taking into account that the now laid back days of summer will no longer exist. Although the course load in the summer semesters will decrease to two courses per semester, the amount of time a student is in class will increase, if you ask me, dramatically. One course will meet four days a week, for 100 minutes a day at a total of 400 minutes a week; totaling 800 minutes a week. (Some classes will be offered twice a week at 200 minutes each).

To make a long story short, students will be in class for a much longer period of time.

Sounds like fun, huh?

After an hour and a half of deliberation, we were all cross-eyed, confused and irritable. Although, I think we all had a better grasp of what is on the horizon at Northeastern University. But on the same note, I think that once the entire staff realized what the summers will entail, something struck home and it all began to make sense.

And honestly, I think people are starting to become concerned. I can see the panic among the staff. Semester conversion has infiltrated another aspect of our lives, there is no more avoiding it, it’s here.

The questions is, are you ready?