I enjoy being at Brandeis, meeting new people and furthering myself on the premed track. For these reasons, I decided to spend my summer living in Ziv 129 taking two semesters of Organic Chemistry with labs. Unfortunately, it soon became very clear to me that a great deal of the University's potential was not realized during the summer. The warm social atmosphere and usually satisfactory food were severely lacking for summer school students.

During the first days of the summer, I was surprised to see the campus so deserted.

On a particularly memorable day, I was able to see more dogs through my window than people.

At Pennsylvania State University, there is an entire website devoted to the summer school; there, summer school serves as a fantastic opportunity for students to stay at school with their friends and meet new people while getting ahead on their studies in a slightly more relaxed atmosphere than the regular semester provided.

However, Ziv was sparsely populated by only enough students to populate seven suites at a time-quite the opposite of the situation at the Penn State summer school. And, to make matters worse, no BranVans run during the summer, so without a car, those of us living on campus were truly stranded most of the time.

Additionally, since I was living on campus, I was required to purchase one of the two impractical meal plans offered during the summer: either 14 meals per week or 21 meals per week.

The only places to spend meals this summer were Einstein Bros. Bagels, which was open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sherman Dining Hall, which was open for very brief windows of time for lunch and dinner each day and which closed at 6:30 p.m. during the first half of the summer.

While the meal plan was required, the food served at Sherman was not at all of acceptable quality. For the first three weeks of the summer, a single table was set up in the front of the kosher section for both kosher and non-kosher patrons with a single entrée and perhaps a side or two. However, the meal plan still cost an exorbitant amount of money ($1,670 for 14 meals a week for 10 weeks). This price is actually more expensive than the same meal plan during the semester. During the semester, the 14-meal plan costs $2,453 per semester of 17 weeks, which amounts to $144.29 a week, but the summer session is only 10 weeks and amounts to $167.00 a week.

Since the summer meal plan costs so much more, one would imagine that perhaps the quality and availability of food would be better than during the semester, but in fact this was not the case. The availability of food was considerably less, which seems a bit fishy (like the food?).

All of my classes this summer were excellent and my community advisor was very friendly and planned cute and fun mixers for us during the summer, However, I'm very disappointed in the University for not making an effort to enhance student life in the summer.

For example, if the University plans to provide such a pitiful selection of food during the summer, the meal plan must be optional for those living on campus.

It is in the University's best interest and within its grasp to improve these aspects of summer school that were lacking.

For example, Dartmouth College has Sophomore Summer, and all sophomores are required to spend the summer after their sophomore year on campus taking classes.

This is not to say that the University should require students to remain on campus but simply that a university similar to ours can have a successful and busy summer session.

The University is taking a step in the right direction by offering some interesting alternatives for earning credits over the summer with the inauguration of the Justice Brandeis Semester.

JBS offers a great opportunity for students to study a specific topic for the entire summer without the usual distractions of the school year while also getting credit. JBS has the potential to bring some life back to the University during the summer by populating campus. However, if JBS is to succeed, the current summer arrangements must be altered and improved to a great extent to make the facilities and environment attractive to prospective students.

While I had a great experience with Organic Chemistry this summer (I would even go so far as to say that I liked it), the prospective summer students should keep in mind that currently taking summer classes at the University is solely a route to complete requirements and not any sort of summer fun.