For a group of 26 students, Winter Term consists entirely of playing and studying games.
Students taking the course, "Strategy of Games," learn different kinds of chess including I-go, checkers and Gomoku and play with their classmates and online opponents.
At the end of Winter Term, the students will create their own games, which they will then show to and play with other classmates. After playing the students' own games, the classmates will give them feedback, which can help to improve their own creative chess games.
Howard Brooks, professor of physics at DePauw, teaches the class and said he decided to teach the course because he wanted to expose them to the complexity of the games and to help them develop strategy.
"It's fun. Actually, I took this winter term when I was in the William Jewell College," Brooks said.
Brooks said he helps students address several problems in the game and try to figure them out. Sophomore Tianchu Dang said he uses many of the skills used in class in his games of chess.
"This class gives me a great experience to learn the chess, which I had never played before," Dang said.
Another student in the course, first-year Minlu Zhang found the class to be both relaxing and interesting.
"This class relaxes me a lot because we do not have too much homework," Zhang said. "The only thing we do is to play chess, to play different chess, the chess I never play in my life although I lost most of the games ... We talk a lot not only the chess strategy, but also our culture."