[nealabq]

UC Berkeley switched from quarters to semesters in 1983 ( https://dailybruin.com/2018/06/08/the-quad-the-long-convolut... ). At the time I thought it was because spring quarter is over later than spring semester (because of Christmas and New Year) and students from quarter-schools had a hard time finding summer jobs because the semester students had already taken all the jobs.

[youeseh]

I went to school at a Canadian university with a 4 month summer break at the end of the winter semester: just as temperatures were warming up, it would last long enough to earn tuition, rent and food for the following school year.