The leaves are falling and the days are getting shorter. Times like these also mean another fall landmark is passing: class registration for the spring semester.
While the stress of planning out another semester is enough to drive most people over the edge, Miami University's whole registration system can infuriate even the most organized of students.
Not only are upperclassmen consumed with finishing thematic sequences and fulfilling graduation requirements, they are relying heavily on the availability of classes in order to finish their degrees on time. In addition, the anxiety of getting into classes that are offered infrequently and have only one section is intensified by the challenge of having to pick up forgotten prerequisites at lower levels. These prerequisites are often classes that are dominated by first-years, posing the following problems.
The mysterious and confusing University Honors Program (UHP) can be a thorn in the side of the rest of Miami's students when it comes time to register. First-years through senior students in UHP are allowed to register for classes before any other undergraduate students at Miami. While I understand this is a privilege given to these students because of their academic
achievements throughout high school and college, the fact that honors first-year students are allowed to register before any upperclassmen seems completely backwards and unfair.
Why should honors first-year students, who have barely half a semester of college under their belts, be allowed to take seats in classes that some upperclassmen may be desperate to get into in order to fulfill requirements they need to graduate? Granted, the amount of first-years in the honors program is not immense, but the entire principle of the system is unwarranted and ridiculous.
The degree to which the entire university caters to first-year and incoming students is unsettling. Not only does it spend a significant portion of their efforts on targeting high school students and their families, but it also makes sure to leave plenty of seats in classes for first-years. Just take a look at Blackboard. Many sections of introductory classes aren't completely open for registration-classes that usually contain 50-100 students have only limited openings for students to register during upperclassmen's registration times. This happens to an even greater degree when registration for the fall semester rolls around because departments are saving seats for the incoming first-years.
As a junior, I have become all too familiar with the convoluted process of force-adding into full classes and dealing with-at times-the inevitable rejection from professors. But I also remember a time when things were decidedly simple: summer orientation before my first semester. Sitting there in the computer lab, scared out of my mind while trying to figure out Blackboard, there was a particular section of BMZ that I had to get into but it was completely full. Instead of going through the process of e-mailing the professor and making appointments, an adviser simply force-added me into the class on the spot.
Once you've been admitted into the university and have your first semester set, the rest of your academic career rests completely on your shoulders. It's up to you to make it through the swamp of scheduling through Blackboard and everyone's eventual favorite, major/minor/thematic sequence restrictions. And if you begin to drown in the worry that you won't make it out of eight semesters alive with a degree, you'll only be saved if you somehow manage to flail your arms above the water enough to be noticed.
Good luck.
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