Your winter break is coming to an end. Imagine that instead of spending your last weekend in preparation to go back to your normal school routine, you get to look forward to your next week being January Interims. Pembroke Hill High School students have a full week of school following winter break designated for what they call Jan Terms.

Jan Terms are a week of classes designed to allow students and teachers to take classes outside regular academic curriculum.

At the beginning of each school year, the available Jan Term trips and courses are announced for students to consider. If students are not interesting in a trip, they have the option of taking three classes of their choice at Pembroke (one of which must be academic), doing daily service through an agency or doing an intern-like project outside of Pembroke.

Although Jan Term week means adding an extra few days to the Pembroke school year, most students appreciate it.

“People look forward to Jan Terms because they are either traveling on a fun trip or get to look forward to this week after break to ease back into school,” Pembroke senior Weslynn O’Neil said. “Honestly, I consider Jan Term as an extra week of break because we don’t go back to normal classes until the following week.”

Although principal for academic affairs Barbara McCormick finds certain aspects of Jan Terms to be synonymous to programs we already have at STA, she also finds the program to be interesting, appealing and beneficial.

“I like the interdisciplinary approach of taking current skills from the core classes and applying them to real-life skills,” McCormick said. “I like how they introduce you to areas of industry in the corporate world and in daily-life activities based on knowledge you already have from your math and science and other core classes.”

According to O’Neil, the preparation for college is one of the most important aspects of Jan Terms.

“If you go on a trip, you learn to be more independent and learn different social skills,” O’Neil said. “If you stay at school, you just learn about different areas of study that you are interested in that you’d possibly want to pursue in college.