Course Registration

Good evening! I thought I'd take a break from my endless amounts of Sunday homework to talk a little about one of the stresses of college life: course pre-scheduling and registration.

Nope, it's not exam stress of finals week that gets to me. Not even the stresses of "crunch time" when a ten page paper is due in two hours and you haven't finished page six yet. Instead, the very moment I hear that the course schedule for the next term is about to become available, my heart starts racing and I start anticipating the worst. Why all this fuss? Because it means that it's just about time for course registration and class petitions.

Petitions? You mean, like you college kids ban together and get enough signatures to affect some change? Ha. I wish.

Nope, we're not picketing on this one. The petition process is actually the time that students are given the opportunity to lobby for a place in the most sought-after classes...or whichever ones are potentially anticipated to be in high demand...or just a class that is declared to be petition-worthy for some reason or another...

This means, in seventy-eight characters or less, a student must declare why he or she wants or needs to take a class. I've heard my fellow classmates writing things as simple as "I like the teacher" to others quoting songs corresponding with the course topic in hopes of gaining admission into a popular class (what? not me...?!). We're also required to give the course the distinction of 1st, 2nd, 3rd choice in subject/GenEd (to fulfill the General Education requirements), possibly so that the petition reviewer has a better understanding of how much we want/need to take the class.

As much as I think it is great to have the opportunity to give reason for why you might want a position in a course instead of blindly going into the registration process just hoping that the class will have open space, the fact is that petitioning is quite a stressful process. Maybe it's been specifically stressful for me because most of the courses I look to petition are outside of my majors and I tend to get denied/waitlisted for the majority of them.

I'm not looking to place blame on anyone for this unfortunate circumstance. I know classes have a limited capacity and that priority must be given to students who are soon to graduate/majors in a specific topic. But from the perspective of a student, it is quite difficult to find a class that either interests you on a personal or academic level, or to have a requirement that you would like to fulfill before the end of your senior year that you are denied admittance to.

But I guess this problem is a reality even without the petition process. It's just that by petitioning and seeing the big DENIED REQUEST bulletin, the circumstance takes on a little bit of a more personal tone rather than just being shut out of a class due to over-enrollment. Many professors are very accommodating, allowing students to enroll after the start of the new term. Even a simple email helps to show show at least some additional interest. But all the same, I haven't heard of much luck overturning a decision against a student's petition.

So, what is the answer to this problem? I'm not purposing a petition against petitions, but I feel as if there should be some better way to go about this all. As I've mentioned, directly consulting a professor seems to work best, but this does not overcome the fact that there are class size limitations. And is this just a reality in small liberal arts colleges like Union and in larger universities, too?

I'm not quite sure of the answer to these questions. In some ways, I feel as if this stress may just be a universal part of college life. I was looking back at my dad's college yearbook one break and amidst all of the photos of frisbee playing and senior pranks were some pretty tense ones picturing long lines of stressed students looking to register for their classes (BY HAND, nonetheless, not with the fancy computer systems we have today). But then again, is there some way to improve the system? I would hope that things would have improved a bit since course registration thirty years ago...

I guess I don't have a real solution. One could purpose that Union could offer more sections of the classes that are in higher demand or require that enrollment in the highly selective courses be obtained through an interview with the professor, but how practical are these measures given time, budget, and numerous other constraints?

So, I guess what I am trying to say is that as much as petitioning classes and course registration is quite a stressful process, it is not the end all of life. College is stressful, but, then again, life is stressful. And as much as I may not be so chipper that I might not have the opportunity to fulfill one of my GenEd requirements before my senior year, c'est la vie; "I will survive."

One thing that college teaches you is to find alternative methods to solve a given problem (I'm pretty sure I even same some Union material refer to this recently...?). And as much as it is difficult and stress-inducing, I guess it's good for us all in the end to go through some of these trying situations. Maybe overcoming these little stresses in life get us ready for the bigger ones to come.

Still, all the same, anyone out there have any suggestions on how to improve the system? Another thing college teaches you is to be efficient and it seems that this process can be at least somewhat improved!