Classes are offered all during the year. You can begin anytime you wish. Distance courses are open whenever you are. You can begin immediately upon registration.
However, distance students are still students of the university and this means the Registrar keeps official records for them. The result is that distance students are placed into an official university semester for record keeping.
Although we may start and stop distance calculus courses to fit students' schedules, the Registrar does their accounting according to their official schedule. Transcripts will reflect the Registrar's records, which may deviate slightly from a student's actual participation.
This can yield unanticipated notices. For instance, if the official university schedule advances from one semster to the next while a distance student is participating in a distance course, the Registrar will be forced to issue a grade. All students received status notification at the end of the semester. However, since the distance student has not completed the course there is no grade. The Registrar will issue a notice of incompletion. This usually catches students offguard, but in fact students have up to a year to complete the course.
If you have any questions during a course about your status, please ask your instructor.