DURING this week's elections,several candidates, includingBatkhuu Dashnyam, toyed with the idea of "course shopping." Numerous top universities, such as Harvard and Yale, currently use this process. These schools do not have the pre-registration periods to which we are accustomed; instead, students are encouraged to attend any classes that interest them during the first two weeks of school before choosing their schedules. The university administration, in turn, modifies classroom assignments and increases the number of teaching assistants where there is unexpected student interest. While this seems to be an ideal system for course selection and registration, it is not the best option for the University.
In one light, course shopping is favorable because students get a feel for a professor and a class before committing to take it. Sitting in on a class can tell you much more about a course and the lecture style than course evaluations or ratemyprofessor.com. However, we are already able to do this. The University has a pre-registration period that remains tentative until the final registration date, which is approximately two weeks after courses begin. All students are welcome to try out any course in addition to their registered schedule, and many do just that.
In small university settings there are fewer concerns with classes becoming overcrowded. Generally, they are able to accommodate the student interest by moving to a different room and adding a teaching assistant. At the University, it is possible that certain popular classes would be unable to provide for the influx of students on the first day. It is easy to imagine a situation in which a professor desiring a small politics class of 20 would end up with 100 students on the first day. Professors should not have to sacrifice the value of small classes for the course shopping system.
If professors capped the size of their classes, the system would still face severe challenges. In Dashnyam's vision, "Seniority would continue to play an important role in determining who gets in and who does not." Some students, particularly first years, may find themselves rejected from class after class. Although these students will face a similar dilemma on ISIS, they are spared the annoyance of attending multiple over-crowded classes, and in the end they are guaranteed placement in the classes they find online. ?
The first two weeks of school are already hectic enough. Professors in classes with the highest turnover rates often hesitate to begin lecturing on important material until the roster has settled. If the course shopping system were instituted, the first classes would be even more chaotic. Professors might face countless room changes and problems switching teaching assistants between courses, as well as a rapidly changing class roster. On the other hand, if professors instead chose to begin teaching on day one, students who were turned away from another class would already be behind. The pre-registration system allows teachers to be at least somewhat prepared with a preliminary roster.
Dashnyam recognizes that after consulting with administration and further researching this subject, he may find it impossible to implement this plan, as "the whole process could turn into a chaos where students would be competing with each other quite ferociously to sign up for a preferred course." The course shopping policies of Harvard and Yale would be inefficient and unrealistic in a university as large as ours, and with just a few changes they would be unnecessary as well.
Interim College Dean Karen Ryan? asserted that many steps have been taken to make the system more flexible for students. The add/drop period is two weeks long, and the electronic waitlist makes joining a class much simpler. There are, however, many changes that could be made to improve the course registration process. There are already several ways in which students can hear their peers' opinions and experiences regarding classes, but the University lacks the means to let students objectively review particular courses. This could be improved if there were an option on the COD for professors to post tentative syllabi before class registration began.
Additionally, there are some departments that lack the resources required to accommodate the student interest. Some people find it almost impossible to get into a class after the first week of school, leaving them without the option of dropping a class with which they were unimpressed. Ryan agreed, stating that although the undergraduate population grows annually, the size of the faculty has not kept pace. If the University had the resources to hire more faculty and build more classrooms, students would finally have flexibility in the course registration process. These changes, rather than course shopping, are the best policies for the University.
Arin Smith is a Cavalier Daily Viewpoint writer.
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