The Inside Scoop

First of all I would like to apologize for having the title of my editorial as “In Inside Scoop,” instead of “The Inside Scoop”. It was not supposed to be like that.

Well, every week that I write, I try to give you (the readers) my perspective on a certain issue that I, and I hope several other people have. So this week when I was considering what I should write about, I took as much time as I needed, because I had to wait for half a century for the “pages” to load while I was trying to register for classes on line. Consequently, I decided to write about how big of a pain in the rear registering on line can be at Georgia College & State University.

On Oct. 28, 2001, Georgia College & State University opened up registration for all non-seniors and those not in the Honors program. About 2 years ago the university started allowing all students to register on line. Now don’t get me wrong, I (thank my lucky stars) never had to stand in line to register for classes. In some, ways though, I think that might be a little more fair than the way registering on line ended up going for me and most of my friends.

First of all, five members of The Colonnade staff drove to New Orleans, Louisiana this past weekend. I enjoyed our stay away from school in a nice hotel for 4 days in the city that I was born in, (True story I was born right outside of downtown New Orleans, in a suburb called Metarie). The only problem this presented was when I needed to get some things cleared up to register on line, I happened to be three states away in a hotel with no Internet. So, when I got back Sunday night and got around to registering for classes I had to wait to get on line until around 2a.m, because I have roommates who also have to register. Next, I then waited for about an hour to find out that I had an academic hold on my records, because I didn’t get to go to my advisor since I was in New Orleans. On top of that, I had two more holds, placed there because of two unpaid parking tickets that I thought had been paid for, but obviously had not been.

So, after I got out of classes Monday, I went and paid my tickets and talked to my advisor, who spent about an hour taking the hold off my record because the network was slow. Oddly, enough it took about 5 minutes for the people in the business office to remove the parking tickets, as opposed to an hour for my advisor. I wonder how that works? Next, I then tried to register on my computer in, The Colonnade office, which is connected through the schools T1 line. It took me over an hour and a half on Monday afternoon to register for four classes.

First of all, when I logged into my account, the computer made me come up with a question in case I ever forget my PIN number (like I’m gonna forget my birthday?). Finally, after waiting for the page with the question to load, typing the question, submitting my question and answer, then re-logging in-twenty minutes later, I got to the first menu.

While I was checking on some of the class availability times, I noticed that the school changed the way you get to search for classes. Instead of giving you a list of classes and listing the teacher that is giving the class, they make you put in the teacher’s name in order to find all the classes they are teaching. Now that seems like a great idea, and in some ways it is. The only problem is that I don’t happen to know every single teacher in the school and the subject they teach. So when I went to go look for an Economics class, I wanted to avoid taking a certain teachers class. Since I couldn’t view the teacher’s names when I looked at the classes, I then had to use the trial and error method until I found a class with the right time and the right teacher.

So finally, I was all registered except for one of my required courses for Mass Comm. Fortunately for me, and everyone else majoring in Mass Comm., they only offer one class with 20 seats, and since I didn’t get to register on time because of all of my holds then that means I have to wait until next year to take the class.

As for several of my friends, they seemed to have some problems as well. First of all, since the seniors get to register ahead of time, you would think that things would be easier for them. Well, they weren’t, because as several seniors told me, the website was down most of the time, so a great number of seniors ended up having to register on paper. One senior signed up for a class that she needs to graduate on time. When she did, she was then kicked out of another class because of a “test” score that she did not have. She ended up having to register on paper and found out that was just a glitch, imagine that just a glitch.

One sophomore nursing student went to register Sunday night and found out that she had a hold on her record because she had not taken the Regent’s exam. Oddly enough, she, along with many other sophomores, had signed up for the test and eventually took it Tuesday. So everyone who signed up and took the exam this semester had to go sign up in the Records office for their classes and agree to take two remedial classes. The remedial classes will be dropped if the students pass the Regent’s exam, so I’m told. Unfortunately the whole process ended up making this one nursing student too late to be in a Microbiology class which she needs to get accepted into the Nursing program next fall. That means, since there is only one Microbiology class with 24 seats in it, everyone who didn’t make it in this semester will have to take it during the summer possibly elsewhere. GC&SU, I’m told, may offer the Microbiology class during summer sessions, but then again it might not. This leaves the student up in the air when it comes to her plans for this summer and next year.

So, why are all these classes so scarce, and what’s with all the holds? Is making someone’s education longer and more expensive worth making sure they pay a parking ticket? Why do sophomores, who are taking the Regent’s exam, have to register on paper later than they expected because nobody told them about any holds and are forced to sign up for remedial classes, which, probably for most, will be dropped later? This only makes students spend more money, going elsewhere for classes, or waiting and possibly prolonging their education.

Now, all of the teachers I have talked to about this problem cite money and resources as their number one problem. I think I have a solution, take the money that students would pay to attend summer sessions, or extra semesters, and use that money to pay for the classes we need and expect when we pay for our education.

There are plenty of changes that could be made in order to make registering easier, and some of them might work. Now, I am not trying to insinuate that anyone purposely makes it harder for students to register. I am just trying to raise questions as to why there are so many obstacles when it comes to getting a timely and purposeful education.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 2 2001. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry