One of the most unique aspects of the Accounting program is the quarter system! While most of USC, including Marshall, operates on a semester system, Leventhal students are on a true quarter system, going through 4 quarters in a single school year (versus 3 that most students do in a school year at other quarter systems). To do this, each semester is split into 2 halves and courses run for only 8 weeks at a time! This can be great because you have access to take more courses in the Accounting field that interest you! And if you don’t like a class? Well it’s over quickly! To put this in perspective, by the end of February, the first quarter of the spring semester will be over by the end of next week! That’s right, in 2 short months, I will have completed a course in audit, corporate tax, and financial statement analysis! What does that mean afterwards? That I get to take other accounting classes that I might not otherwise get exposure to if we were on a semester system!
Now the quarter system is great in giving you the opportunity to take more classes, but you might be wondering if it’s a little stressful having classes for such a short time. Maybe the strangest thing to grasp is that you will already have midterms 2-3 weeks into the semester! However, the professors do an amazing job of making sure you stay on track and as long as you do the required reading and work, then midterms remain an easy challenge to tackle!
Overall, the quarter system at Leventhal provides an amazing opportunity for accounting students! Students are able to take more classes, classes go by much quicker, and students have an opportunity to really taylor their educational path they want to!