Registration proves to be an annual hassle for students

Oct. 27 kicked off the start of registration season with the class of 2013 and other students with at least 84 credit hours waking up at 9 a.m. to quickly enter their pin numbers and try to get the classes they desired. But many who went to register they found the process very frustrating yet again, but for different reasons than in the past.

For senior Jacquie Krajnik the process was smoother than in previous semesters.

“I was up, registered, and was back in bed by 9:05 a.m.”

But for Krajnik who is a marketing and management dual major, the variety of classes offered was disappointing. “It sucks when you’re hoping to take one more class with the one professor that made you truly enjoy learning…only to realize that they’re only teaching like one class.”                 

Krajnik’s thoughts were reiterated by junior Jessica Bliss. As an adolescent education major with an English concentration, Bliss feels the stress of fulfilling certifications for her teaching degree, but also the requirements for her concentration.

“Registration is the most stressful time of my life and I haven’t even registered yet,” Bliss said. “Not to mention there are requirements needed for my concentration where only one class is offered to fulfill it.”

Head of the English Department Mark Hodin, Ph.D. addressed many of the concerns that students may face when registering particular in the English major. 

“We are offering fewer 300-level courses in our new major because we are offering more 200-level courses,” said Hodin, who believes there was more variety before but less of a strict path for the English major.  The lack of variety has a two-fold explanation. First is the sense of freedom for major electives and second is enrollment is low in certain classes.

“We also have fewer requirements at the 300-level because we didn't want students to lose the ability to take ‘elective’ courses,” Hodin said. “There are only so many students who will enroll in English classes each semester, offering two of these classes in a semester would likely mean not being able to run one of our electives, perhaps reducing the ‘variety’ overall for students,” Hodin said.

But the variety issue has spanned across all departments.  For senior Chelsea Shumaker, a psychology major with an English minor, registering for a capstone class proved the most frustrating challenge. 

“I went to register at exactly 9 a.m. on Saturday morning, and immediately was shut out of the two sections of Cultural Psychology,” Shumaker said.  “Since all 40 seats were taken, I moved on to the English capstone courses, but was denied access to the two courses the English department offered because seats were being saved for English majors.” Shumaker then had to move to another department’s capstones and faced the same issues.  After contacting a professor who is teaching one of the English capstones, Shumaker finally received forced entry into a capstone class. 

“I'm very thankful to be in a capstone that is in my minor,” Shumaker said. “I’m relieved to be on track to graduate again, but was very disappointed by the registration system.”                  

While slow servers and internet portals were frustrating to students during past registration mornings, a lack of content and offerings seemed to leave students disappointed this time around.

Those students with 54-83 credit hours will register tomorrow, students with 24-53 credit hours register Nov. 10, and students with 0-23 credit hours register Nov. 17.  All registration periods begin at 9 a.m.