For the first time Saint A’s will be offering three online courses that students will be able to take during winter break. This is an opportunity for students to make up or get ahead on credits for the following semester. Each course is two credits and it will be from Dec. 19 to Jan. 26. Registration began Nov. 1.

Professor Andrew Moore Ph.D, who is the director of summer schools as well as a history professor, says that these courses are a great way for students to get one or two credits over break so their work load isn’t as heavy in the spring. This can be helpful because the college now counts how many credits you have rather than the amount of courses you take in order to graduate on time. The “magic number” to graduate he says is 128 credits. After this session, he will evaluate how the courses went and hopefully will add more options in the future if there is a higher demand from both students and faculty.

Although there are only three classes, they are all in wide variety. The first one is BI105, called Infectious Disease. Students will learn about the effects of vaccines, epidemics, and other things involving diseases. It will be taught by Professor Elizabeth Greguski. You do not have to be a biology major to take this class; it is open to anyone who is interested.

EN171, American Gothic will also be offered. This course will be taught by Professor Jennifer Thorn. This class will focus on dark fictional American gothic movies and writings. The class will cover two movies as well as studying major authors such as Edgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. It stretches over a wide range of time; from 1690s up to 2009. Students will learn the differences between idolization and actuality such as the shadow of the American dream.

The third class is taught by Professor Elizabeth Fouts. It is called SP372 Spanish Introduction to Professional Nursing. In this course nursing majors can learn basic concepts of nursing in Spanish. They will also learn about the nursing role in Hispanic/Latino communities in the United States and other sorts of cultural impacts on health. This course will be available for nursing majors only.

Registration dates will be Nov. 1 through Nov. 17 and then again Dec. 5 through Dec. 20.