It's basically the regular course but on overdrive in terms of time and information condensed, as opposed to a regular course that would run for like 13 weeks throughout May-August maybe once per week depending on how many lectures and when tutorial is.
Intersession runs from May-June only. So it is basically the Summer Semester version course cut in half so it would be intensive and you would be going to school more than once a week and everything is much faster.
I would say they are easy if you are only doing one as you can be more focused and studious on one subject/class but that's just for me. It depends on your preference and work ethic/style. Like if some people took a regular summer session they might slip and get lazy because it is only once a week over a course of 4-months.
This comment is a bit late but I hope it helps someone else in the future!
I took IAT100 as an Intersession course and it was super easy. It was fun too. I took it with a friend and the projects were actually fun to do together. It might be a bit harder if you don't have experience with photoshop but if your TA is nice they'll be understanding.
There's actually 3 options in the summer: full semester, intersession, and summer session, with the last being like intersession but for the 2nd half of the summer.
Yeah, it's intense, but I would recommend intersession if you're only taking one or two classes. It gets things out of the way so you can go on vacation or something later on.
I did one intersession course and 3 other full semester courses.
It was easier than my previous semesters of 4 full courses cuz there's a little less weighing you down for the finals for the full semester courses and same for the final for the intersession course
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BeAnBeAn has put it in a nutshell -- intersession classes are intense. Schedule of classes is at:
http://students.sfu.ca/enrollment/schedule.html
and there should be a listing for the Interession classes separately.