Many students come to campus knowing what classes to attend and how much time it will take to complete their educational plans and achieve those AA degrees or other certificates. Other students fall victim to that culprit we all know too well: the final drop deadline.
The common scenario unravels like this often: a high-demand general education class – Psychology 101 comes to mind – which tends to fill up to the brim of the waitlist capacity. In the first two weeks, a couple of hopefuls will sit in and pray for an opening.
However, due to the psychology of competition, few to none of the students already enrolled drop the class. After all, who would want to drop the class everyone wants? It’s human nature.
Enter the second round of midterms. By now, some of the original students have fallen behind with their work. Turns out either their other classes or a hyperactive social life conflicts with their favorite G.E. course. By the time of the final drop deadline, half of the class disappears faster than Lieutenant Tasha Yar in the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
This is a lose-lose situation. The “drop-a-bye” student has to retake the class and endangers his or her performance in other classes by taking on too big of a workload. This means a longer stay at De Anza College. Now, don’t get us wrong, we like it here and we also like students here. But a great percentage of students want to eventually transfer to a four-year university, so staying on track is important.
Speaking of which, by taking up a seat in a high-demand class, that student made it impossible for one of his peers to take advantage of that spot. As a result, that quarter’s spot was wasted, as neither the original student nor any of the rejected hopefuls could use it to fulfill their GE requirements.
We propose you come into this quarter with a plan, a plan that will lay out what you need to do with regard to classes and the amount of effort needed to successfully complete them in a timely, first-class manner.
Find out what your schedule is like; don’t overburden yourself with too much in one quarter. Talk to the counselors on campus early and have them aid you in coming up with an educational plan. Some classes are only offered once a year, while others can be taken any quarter.
Take a look at your commitments like work, your social life and daily tasks; create a time budget, as you would for your monthly expenses. Talk to students who have taken the classes you signed up for and find out how much work it realistically takes to do well. In that case, it is best to ask someone you know with a skill set similar to yours. For some people, writing an essay is a piece of cake, while for others it can be serious work.
Armed with that strategy, you can avoid that horrible feeling of dread during the last stretch of the quarter and do your peers a service by opening up a spot for them.
Another vital benefit is that a transcript with consistency demonstrates your ability to commit to your four-year institution of choice, or to potential employers.
Employers especially will want to know if you can commit and follow through with the task you set for yourself as well as the tasks they will assign to you. After you complete your time-budget for the quarter, make it a point to follow through with your commitment. Treat De Anza as a trial work place.
The employers out there will, once this recession has seen its final days, look to you with confidenceand expectation.
We at La Voz want you to enter college life with commitment to your education, commitment to following through with classes and commitment to the endeavors that lay before you in the years to come.
