I’ve been considering USF, so thanks for the opinion! I’ll keep your thread in mind should I register…
Posted by RedRosesForMe:
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Of this I can agree completely. I misinterpreted your OP. I missed the part about these being advanced courses.
If an effort to save face, I will stick to my original premise. If by the second semester the student cannot register correctly, the institution has failed to provide the student with needed tools. There are some who will with malicious intent try to mess with the system, (i.e. a disgruntled student who was failed because he showed up for less than half his classes), but is the responsibilty of the institution to catch and eliminate these before they come to the detriment of other students. There is of course the oddity that no one expected that will occur now and again. I give the following ancedote.
I had surgery between the fall and spring semesters of my senior year in high school. After the surgery I never returned to high school due to complications. I finished with private tutors hired by my parents. I did graduate, and went on to eventually get a degree from a state university. My HS transcripts went directly from my high school to the University. I never saw them.
Many years later I applied to a different college for a different career, and was refused admission. Upon appeal of the refusal for the first time ever I saw my high school transcript. To my horror, stamped in great big letters across it was “Special Ed.” At the time I graduated from HS special ed was anyone who was not in a regular classroom. Fifteen years later “Special Ed” meant mentally challenged. The college I applied for had a policy of not admitting students into programs they had little chance of succeeding in (I was going for computer technology). I was more than welcome to apply to programs for which I had a greater chance of success. The appeal was upheld, but to this day I think mainly because I already had a BS from UW-Platteville.
My point is there will always be things that no one took into account. But it is the institution’s responsibilty to make themselves accessible to students. Failure to do so will result in failure of the institution to meet the needs of the community as a whole.
Glad to hear things worked out for you, good luck.
It sounds to me like the failure is not of the potential students to be computer literate. It’s between the professors, the registrar’s office, and the registration software.
It shouldn’t be possible to “improperly register” for a class. If you do it in person, it should be in the system while you’re standing there. If you do it online, it should produce a clear outcome: “you are registered” or “this class is full/error in registration.” The problem is that the professors appear to be keeping their own registration lists, separate from the actual registrar’s.
Which professor’s often have to keep if the class is either over subscribed or has certain pre-reqs that are not flagged in the Database.
Listing off of the top of my head the constraints:
First - how many total students should be allowed to register?
- Classroom size (should trigger the max number of students)
- TA allocation (some schools only give a TA once a certain number of students is reached. Some classes NEVER get a TA, so the professor will put a hard cap on the total number instead).
- Assumed drop / no show rate (perhaps just run off of a wait list)
Now, lets assume popular classes that typically fill up. How do we decide who gets to take the class?
- First come, first served?
- Pre-reqs (the student should not be able to register w/o having taken the prior classes). Note, this might force petitions to waive the pre-req.
- Required for major or not? Students who are required to take the class should have priority over students who are taking it for distribution requirements.
- Year of student - graduating seniors should have priority over freshmen.
- Reason for taking the class (small seminars where the professor wants to ensure that all discussion have value).
These various factors are why the system breaks down. Often the University puts the onus on the faculty, or one office staffer, or just lets chaos reign.
There is a NEED for a better online reigstration system where you could list, in order, the classes you want to take. The system would allow you to flag (if class A is not available, register me for Class B ASSuming that Class B does not meet at the same time as Class C, Assuming I got into Class C). All students would list their preferences X weeks before the term, then the slottings would occur and would be posted. This would take a decent amount of linear programming to work properly, and would never probably be properly funded.
Then it would still have issues given the number of students who drop once they read a syllabus that says things like “Students regularly fail my course, there is no extra credit, and missing a midterm requires a copy of the hospital bill or the death certificate.”
Plus they should get a confirmation email. I don’t understand how a properly set up system can let this situation happen, so I assume the system is not properly set up. Judging from my kids’ experience, registration puts high stress on the system. Can it be kicking students off before registration is complete, leaving duplicate phantom students in classes? Can seats not be locked properly? How do they handle paper registration? Is the test for fullness done when the paper arrives, or is the postmark used?
Someone who can’t use the system (which indicates the system is badly designed) is more likely to get screwed by having registration disappear than a random student who comes later.
Anyone who doesn’t know what this feels like can just wait until a post goes to /dev/null during the next board freeze.
That’s good, I just enjoy Tampa so much more because there are so many more classes offered. If you need to take one course, it’s probably offered 3 times instead of one, and this is better for my personal scheduling conflicts. And for my major, they don’t even offer 90% of the classes I need at the St. Pete campus. Yeah, the campus is huge, and the parking is ridiculous, but I’ll pay that price to actually be able to take what I need.
Good luck though!
You too! 