The first semestre (semester) begins in February and ends in late June, followed by vacaciones de medio año (mid-year vacation) which lasts about two or three weeks. The second semestre then begins in mid to late July and ends in early December. Another common way of breaking down the academic year is into cuatrimestres (four-month periods of time) in which classes run for about 3 and a half months, followed by a week or two of vacation. In this calendar type, the school year has three different cuatrimestres. In the first cuatrimestre, classes begin toward the end of January and finish the last week of April, then they are followed by two weeks of vacation at the beginning of May. Classes in the seccond cuatrimestre then begin in mid-May and conclude at the end of August, followed by about a week of vacation. Within the second cuatrimestre, students also have vacaciones de medio año during the first week of July. Finally, classes for the third cuatrimestre begin the second week of September and conclude the first week of December. As I mentioned, these different calendar styles are used in different institution types. The first is typically seen in lower education levels such as escuela primaria (primary school) and escuela secundaria (secondary school). The second schedule type is more common in higher education such as in universidades (universities) as well as in the Costa Rican equivalent to technical colleges.
