The Southern Cross University law school has just confirmed that it will be trialing a new academic model in 2021 made up of six study blocks per year.
The ABC obviously has some decent connections and was, I assume, able to join a recent university staff meeting held by SCU. You can find the ABC article here, which primarily focuses on how the current COVID situation has affected the university (spoiler – it’s not good, and like most universities out there at the moment, the university and its staff are facing significant financial repercussions).
For the purposes of this blog, the most interesting part is a throw-away line that explains that the law school and engineering department will be the guinea pigs in 2021 for the new academic model, which is made up of six study blocks per year.
First of all, and most importantly, what will this be called? I feel like Australia is just getting used to the trimester system. There is a thing called quadmesters out there (thanks Google), so this will presumably be called the sexmester. Cannot wait for the memes.
Secondly, when do law students get a break? This is mostly rhetorical because law school is designed so that we never get a break, but what at what point are students not meant to study? The ABC article mentions that the full academic year will be 48 weeks (which probably means 4 weeks off over Christmas / New Year). If you divide 48 weeks by 6, this provides a maximum of 8 weeks per sexmester. Will the study component be 7 weeks, with a week break after each one?
It will be interesting to find out more, and I’ll update this post when that information comes out!
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