HECTIC: a word many people would use to describe the process of signing up for classes at the University. While many complicated complaints can be justly levied against the entire scheduling process, there is one particularly simple grievance many University students discover over the summer: not being able to change schedules until August.
Simply put, the contemporary system works by enabling students to register at a designated period in the spring semester, depending on the student's year and credits. Before summer starts, students are disabled from adding and dropping courses even though ISIS remains open. Students then remain unable to add or drop courses until the end of August, right before classes start. The Registrar's office explains that this allows the University to register new students (first years and transfers) during the summer without overloading ISIS.
The first qualm with the system is a simple one: it's annoying. A common scenario illustrates the accusation -- when students choose their classes in the spring semester, they make rash decisions, picking classes they later decide they want no part of. But then, the stress of courses and finals builds up, and they put course selection on the back burner. However, by the time they can pay attention to that back burner, it's summer and they have no choice but to wait until late August to correct their schedule. Now while this is bothersome in and of itself, it leads to two heavier problems.
The first problem is a system overload in late August. Because so many students desire course changes, they are all forced to log on during a shorter time period in August, and ISIS, as we've all come to find out, cannot handle it. Basically, it becomes nearly impossible for students to log onto ISIS, much less add or drop courses. If the system were changed so that we could add and drop courses over the summer, a majority of students would do so, minimizing the now almost inevitable showdown with ISIS in August.
The second problem is one of student anxiety. When students don't know what their schedules will be like the day before classes start, obviously they become more and more insecure and anxious. This problem occurs because of the discussed ISIS overload; so many course changes occur in so little time that it becomes impossible to tell which courses are full and which are empty, leaving students to spend their day clicking "add" over and over in hopes that it will eventually work. Student anxiety, almost self-evidently, is a dragon with many heads: it makes students more likely to be angry, more likely to fight, more likely to get sick (anxiety impairs the immune system) and less likely to smile (and we all know there's no such thing as too many smiles).
Furthermore, when students are forced to finalize their classes later rather than earlier, their ability to purchase cheaper books from other sources diminishes because the books will arrive too late.
Many students, excited to finalize their schedules, have to wait the entire summer before the opportunity to do so. The result of this is an unnecessary overflow of student anxiety and stress over course scheduling. And when the opportunity does come, they are forced into ISIS at her worst. ISIS is an out-dated and flawed system: most everyone who has had experience with it agrees with that statement. The good people of the Registrar understand this and are working on a solution which admittedly will not be available in the near future. But when creating this solution, it is crucial that the new system allow all students to add and drop courses over the summer.
Sina Kian is a Cavalier Daily columnist. He can be reached at skian@cavalierdaily.com.
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