Ep. 95 - Learn About the Winter Intersession!

In Episode 95 of the CSUSB Advising Podcast, academic advisor Matt Markin chats with Veronica Martinelli, Senior Program Specialist at CSUSB about everything you should know about Winter Intersession 2025! How many units can you take? Is financial aid available? When do you register? Find out in this episode!

For more information, check out the CSUSB Winter Intersession website, https://www.csusb.edu/winter-intersession

E-mail: winterintersession@csusb.edu
Phone: (909) 537-3978

Instagram: csusbwinterintersession

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hi and welcome to another episode of the CSUSB Advising Podcast. My name is Matt Markin, an academic advisor in the ASUA academic advising office, and we welcome back to the podcastVeronica Martinelli, Senior Program Specialist in the College of Extended and Global Education to tell you more about the winter intercession. You may know about the fall semester, the spring semester, maybe even the summer sessions, but do you know what the winter intersession can offer you? Well, let's learn more from Veronica. Veronica, welcome back to the podcast.

Veronica Martinelli  
Thank you for having me. I appreciate you helping get the word out to the students and all the accurate information. 

Matt Markin  
Absolutely. So we'll jump right in. You know, one of the questions we get from students is, when does the winter intersession start? when do those classes start, and how long's the term?

Veronica Martinelli  
So first I want to say, because I am receiving calls from students, I want to say that winter intersession is winter intercession 2025 and the reason we call it winter intersession, 2025 is because the session ends in 2025 so don't be confused. I'm having students call thinking it's 2024 but it is not. It's 2025 and the session does begin December 20, 2024 and it ends January 13, 2025 it is a three week session, and you do meet over winter break, so you will have classes. Some of the classes are asynchronous, where you do the work at your time, and the other classes are synchronous, where you do have to meet, but you will be meeting or required to do work over the winter break.

Matt Markin  
And you know, I know with depending on when a student listens to this spring registration, spring 2025 semester registration begins for some students on October 28 so with the winter intercession, can you tell us when students would register? 

Veronica Martinelli  
Yes, students will register November 12, 2024, And it opens at 12am. I just want to also say that sometimes it doesn't work. For some reason, we've had this experience over the last couple of years where students are not able to enroll or to register. Unfortunately, I can't fix that until I come in in the morning, around eight o'clock, but we do request that you send us an email to winterintersession@csusb.edu as soon as you have that issue, so we can have the date and time of your email, and this is mostly for the discount issue.

Matt Markin  
Okay, awesome. So if anything, if all works, well, it should be at midnight on November 12, or that early morning of November 12. And if, for some reason, there's some sort of glitch, it will get fixed at some point, but they can always, like you said, email and notify you, and ultimately, everything will get squared away, right? And then the other question we get a lot is, because it's a shorter session, does that mean that the units are different versus if the student took the same class during the regular semester.

Veronica Martinelli  
So you can take a maximum of four units, and it is no different than any other class that you take during the fall, summer or spring. You can take a three unit class, a two unit class, however, you make up your four units, but you cannot go over four units. And like I said it is the same length of or the same number of units as a regular session. It's just you're able to get it done in three weeks. And that's one of the positives of winter intercession, is that you do get to get a class out of the way in three weeks. I do recommend that if you're like on academic probation, or you're having difficulty in your classes or something, think really hard before you take winter intersession, although it is a huge benefit and it will help you graduate early, we don't want to set you up for failure. So please make sure that you can you feel you can do this work because, again, it is a full 16 week semester within three weeks, so please be prepared for that work.

Matt Markin  
Oh, yeah, I know that's wonderful tips to give there, and if anything also kind of going along with that. If you as a student has a question, Should I do it? You know, maybe I can talk it through. You can always talk with your advisor, whether it's in the ASUA Academic Advising Office or talking to your faculty advisor, or if you're one of a student in one of our advising or support programs like EOP or SAIL, definitely talk to your EOP or SAIL counselor as well. So a question we get to kind of goes hand in hand is cost and is there financial aid available? So can you tell us more about that?

Veronica Martinelli  
So the cost is 320 per unit for undergrad, and that is per unit. That's not per class. So it's 320 per unit for grad students, it's $340 per unit. There are no mandatory campus fees, and if you're an international student, or you're out of state student, there are not any non resident fees. So it's a straight 320 per unit, or 340 per unit.

Matt Markin  
And then with that, is there financial aid available? I think you had mentioned a discount. Is that the same, different? 

Veronica Martinelli  
So, financial aid, if you have any fall financial aid left over, you can apply that. I don't know if you have that, but you can go to financial aid. You can reach out to financial aid, or go to your Student Center and see if you have any financial aid from fall 2024 left over. We also have two discounts. The first one is the winter assistance discount. That one is a first come, first serve. We pay 50% of your tuition. We don't pay your lab fees or books or anything like that, but we do pay 50% of your tuition. It's a first come, first serve. So that is why I mentioned send me an email immediately to the winterintersession@csusb.edu if you're having problems registering, because we will take that email and whatever the time it came in, we will still put it in the order that you sent us the email. So please make sure, if you're having any problems, if someone registered at nine o'clock and you tried it 12:05 I will put you first and so it is first come first serve. And I just want to make sure that students are aware of that, because of the issue with the registration, I don't want to feel like they're going to miss out on it, just so you know, funds have been running out by 9:30, 10 o'clock in the morning. So again, I suggest that you register early and you email me if you have an issue registering. Then the second grant or discount that we have that is called the Graduation Initiative discount. That discount is for students, undergrad students who are graduating in winter intercession. So at the most, you would only need four units to graduate. If you can, then it will be 100% will be paid of your tuition, and you will again, it's not books or lab fees or anything, but it's 100% of your tuition. You will need to complete an application, and that will be open on November 5, and once you submit that application, advising will reach out to you and because they're going to review the application, make sure that you truly only need four units, that you can graduate, and they'll reach out and they'll work with me to make sure that you get that discount. So again, the application will open November 5. It's on our website, which is csusb.edu, forward, slash, winter, dash, intercession, and just go to the tab that is discounts, and you'll see all the eligibility for each discount, but you will find the application, but not until November 5.

Matt Markin  
If a student is paying the fee, do you know if there's like, a payment plan potentially for a student?

Veronica Martinelli  
No, there is none a payment plan. Just because it's only three weeks long, there's really not a way to make a payment.

Matt Markin  
And let's say I'm a new student for the spring 2025, semester. Do you know if I'm able to take a class during the winter intersession before this the spring starts, or is there a department I should contact for that?

Veronica Martinelli  
You can take Open University, because you're not considered a CSUSB student until spring term. So because winter, you can go ahead and you can reach out to Open University. And their website, I believe, is csusb.edu, forward slash Open University. And that will have all of the rules and all the registration form and everything that you need. It will also have the contact information if you need to reach out to somebody.

Matt Markin  
All right. And then last question you've mentioned, the email address, the website. Is there any other if a student has a question, anywhere else they can try to contact?

Veronica Martinelli  
You can reach out to us at 909-537-3978. Just so you know, we do answer that phone. It doesn't go to voicemail. If it does go to voicemail, we respond to your voicemail, the the email box the inbox, which is winterintersession@csusb.edu that is answered daily. So you will have, not in a 24 hour period, but usually within the same day, you will have a response to your to your question or your email that you sent us.

Matt Markin  
Well, Veronica, thank you as always, for providing this information to our students and yodes. We definitely hope that you decide if you want to attend for the winter intersession, you have a lot of great information here, and like Veronica said, it's a great way to knock out a class in a short three weeks. So Veronica, thank you again.

Veronica Martinelli  
Thank you. I appreciate again. I appreciate your help and supplying the students with the proper, correct information.