Showing up on the first day of school was exhilarating, but frustrating. Upon discovering that a class I needed to graduate had been cancelled due to under-enrollment, I needed to find another class. Two days, and a dose of luck, later I enrolled in the History of Latin America.
I am not the only one noticing, or being effected by, the cuts around campus this quarter. Classes are packed, thousands of students are being turned away, and students who registered early are running around trying to add classes because of last-minute cancellations.
Countless other pre-registered students began the quarter unprepared to crash classes and were now last in line on waiting lists behind the hundreds of others who were simply late to register.
In light of recent budget cuts, tensions are running high and the school administration is working to find solutions, but I am not sure if they see all the chaos going on inside classrooms in the early weeks of this new quarter.
This registration disaster needs to be brought to the forefront and a new system needs to be thought out for upcoming quarters. If such cancellations are going to continue because of budget cuts then the administration must find a way to prioritize students who registered early so that they still have a change to enroll in key classes.
It is unfair and irresponsible of De Anza’s administration to simply ignore the population of students that were thrown out of cancelled classes. One option is sending these students to the top of the waitlists in comparable courses. Responsible students should not be thrown to the bottom of waiting lists because of the budget crisis.