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Registration lands just a week after Spring Break and the usual frustration will soon befall students across campuses and majors.
Some students won’t realize the full pain that registration is until Fall ’02 starts when, after entering each of their classes, they find that certain prerequisites for the class haven’t been met.
One University official called it “an embarrassment.”
This year, the University is working on clearing up some of the problems, but the question still remains, why has it been so long?
When the DiamondLine, and later OWLnet, started up, certain measures were put in place to ensure students couldn’t sign up for morning classes on Main Campus and afternoon classes in Temple Japan. But as for meeting prerequisites, the flaw in the system started when registration required standing in line with paper slips.
Back in those days, before 1995, advisers actually sat with each student to go over prerequisites, but as that method became outdated the new system kicked in with few methods of catching those students who slipped through the cracks. That continued until this year, when a number of students found themselves getting kicked out of classes because they didn’t meet minimum requirements.
Most notably this took place in the JPRA program, possibly as a windfall from last year’s non-re-accreditation, but stay of execution. The problem, though, exists across the board: all campuses and all majors.
Administration officials said bug fixes, which would prevent students from registering for classes if they didn’t meet minimum requirements, were underway, but not all of these will be caught by the system. Computer speeds, officials said, prevent foolproof systems but as computers increase speed, more fixes will become feasible.
Other improvements to the system will make their debut before the end of the semester, including a larger number of compatible browsers for those anti-Microsoft students.
As Computer Services and Academic Records improve their end of the project, students need to wake up and take on some responsibility for their part.
Sure, taking PoliSci 145 before 51 might not be such a problem, but how about a student taking German 62 before 51.
Prerequisites exist for a reason and students can try to push their way through, but in the end, students are hurting themselves; even more so, when they find themselves without classes at the beginning of the next semester.
Something as important as completing a four-year program in four years is serious business. Students complain about Temple holding them back, but then students must make sure not to screw themselves.
It’s a simple responsibility; prerequisites are listed with asterisks and footnotes, just follow down the page to the end of the listing.
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