Do you prefer fall and spring semesters or the summer/mini-mester?

You are still new at the college environment and I commend you on completing your first year. Your education should be expanding the breadth and depth of whatever courses you are seeking. Having semesters is a real blessing in its own just because of the normal pace of a course or set of courses. I took semester courses through my undergrad in chemistry and one summer course and also did all semester courses for my PhD. Like you said summer course are truncating time and slamming information down like no other and its a carbon copy of whatever you are supposed to put down on a test. The active learning process gets diminished compared to that of typical semester courses. As for summer courses, overall, this depends largely on what courses you are taking, the instructor and the objectives of the course. By now you know what you need to get through the rest of the three years to finish up but it still seems like at this stage that the day will never come. Also summer courses are great if you want to graduate early or something like that but remember the older a person gets the more likely you are to burn out. With no break in between summer courses can be helpful or harmful depending on how likely you are to burn out. Personally I didn't like summer courses because I had way to high expectations for any summer courses. Even when I was transitioning into graduate school, I took linear algebra and differential equations during the summer and eventually hated linear and liked differential equations. This primarily had to do with my expectations and applications of each of the courses. However if you are able to keep up the pace go for anything your heart desires.