Closed classes.
Who hasn't heard the calming RVSP voice inform you that the one class you really need to register for is already filled? If you haven't heard this guy, you haven't fully lived.
The average student takes 4.9 years to graduate, said Ray Croc, the director of the Student Research Office. A lot of that is probably due to lack of class availability.
I wouldn't be upset if I were a freshman, or even a sophomore Ä filled classes are a way of life for underclassmen Ä but I'm not. As a junior, I wonder, why is a 200-level class filled with seniors? Since it is a 200-level course, shouldn't the majority of students in that class be sophomores?
Actually, why is there only one section of this class offered? If something is a general education requirement for anyone in the College of Arts and Sciences, wouldn't it seem prudent to offer more than one section? That is just a thought.
While I'm on the subject of classes, I have another question: Why is the 400-level biochemistry class I'm in have as many people as its numerical level? Four hundred people in Chemistry 100 is the norm. Four hundred people in Biochemistry 462 should not be.
I understand that obviously there are a lot of students interested in this type of coursework, but why is there only one lecture offered? Yes, discussion sections are offered, but the main course information is presented in a classroom where the instructor has trouble seeing the back of the room.
With filled class sections and gargantuan class sizes, it's a wonder that anybody graduates within four years.
According to a recent national study of the class of 1987, 17 percent of the stu
mid
dents graduated in four years, 25 percent graduated in five years, and 7 percent graduated in 6 years.
Maybe I'm being nostalgic, but I always thought that studies toward an undergraduate degree were supposed to be completed in four years, not assigned a variable. While the university says it is encouraging students to graduate in four years, individual offices don't seem to have subscribed to that theory as wholeheartedly. I've been told by different advisers on several past occasions to "take it easy" and go to school an extra couple of years.
I don't want to take it easy! I want to graduate in four years. Statistics and academic advisers can tell me anything they want to Ä but nowhere is it written that I have to listen to them.