I just had one of the moments when I realized that yeah, I'm indeed in a large university. As I've said before, there aren't many undergrads in my department, or at least, those who take classes with me. I hardly have to worry that the classes I want to take are fast filling up, that I have to make a sudden change of plans on the day of my registration, or that my undergrad career might be longer than I planned due to scheduling problems.
Till Monday, the first day of class registration. One of my friends, who's in her final year (I think), needed to take a particular lab in a particular department that has lots and lots and lots of students. In fact, the class is required for two highly popular majors. She asked if I could register for a afternoon slot, as the afternoon slots were almost filled up (and it's only the first day of class), and she doesn't fancy spending two nights of 4 hours each in class. I agreed, and come today, her registration date, not only is the afternoon slots all closed, all the slots are closed. And the department has stopped registration, so even if I unregister from the class, she can't register for it.
Maybe I'm not attuned to the difficulties of administrating a university, but this is simply unacceptable. By your junior, and especially senior, year, you should be able to register for any required classes in your department - that should be the minimum expectation (and I'm not asking for any department, but the department in which you are a declared major and should be concerned about your academic progress). Why aren't there more classes to accomodate a large student population? And if the department cannot afford to hold more classes, then find some way to reduce the number of majors - there are so many ways to do that, and a GPA requirement in prerequisite classes is reasonable - if you can't handle your prereqs, there's little chance that you'll flourish in the department (and this is a science department).
Reminds me of the beginning of the semester. The engineering school has taken in way too many students yet again, but don't seem to be expanding the number of classes to accomodate them. The program has two required frosh classes, and most Singaporeans with the ambition for finish the program in 3 years take both classes in their first semester. Thanks to too many students and a lack of classes, the freshmen were prohibited from registering in both. If they did, they would automatically be dropped from both classes.
Sure, giving more people the opportunity to attend college is a good thing, and giving more people the freedom of choosing their major is also a good thing, but this is way too extreme - having the opportunity is good, but what's the point of giving everyone a crappy college education? The quality of education diminishes as the number of students in class increases - in all honesty, how can a professor (if even a full time faculty) pay attention to 200-300 students? How can TAs grade so many assignments - unless they're multiple choice or extremely straightforward, short answers? Sure, the most charismatic and knowledgable professors might hold the students' attention for an hour, but that's not where most of the learning happens - learning happens when you actually get your hands dirty in homework or essays - and not the factual recall of multiple choice. And timely, detailed and helpful feedback always helps.
Well, maybe this is the reality of college, a reality I have little exposure to, but a reality that needs to be changed.
