It is that time in the semester when students are consulting their advisors and planning their course schedules for Spring 2007. For some of the seniors, this means squeezing in enough credits to graduate; the rest of us are in registration battles with the entire student body. How convenient would it be to sign up for classes earlier than everyone else to ensure an optimal schedule? For the members of athletics teams, the Residence Life and Office of the First-Year Experience staff, and a lucky few in a random selection, that dream can become a reality.
In order to avoid conflicts between class time and practices or games, the student athletes are granted early registration tickets. This is a particular case where the students need cooperation from the Institute. However, what are the legitimate reasons behind ResLife and FYE staff members receiving special treatment? FYE staff are involved in the summer activities for incoming freshmen, and ResLife commitments are during the evening—neither of those conflict with the typical time frame for classes. Then why do these people get that opportunity each semester while other students may have to settle for different classes or section times?
Apparently, these groups—as well as the aforementioned random selection—are just that: a “random” cross-section of all majors. These students are even sent letters congratulating them for being selected for early registration, explaining that this is to work out bugs in the system before it opens to the rest of RPI—occasionally, a course has not been reopened or set up properly, which prohibits anyone from enrolling in it. For maximum success in this testing, students from all majors should participate in it to discover as many problems as possible. In particular, early registration for academic classes should be based on major and year, not group membership—a distinctly non-academic factor.
In order to guarantee that the registration process works smoothly, students from every major should be helping the registrar’s office fix problems. There will always be the need for early registration groups, but the Institute should be fair and sensible in how these students are selected.
