I’m sure most of us have our classes for next semester figured out by now. We’ve checked the requirements for our majors, mapped out our weeks, checked the course forums for the scoop on grade distributions and read professor reviews. The resources of the modern information age have granted us a smooth, logical scheduling experience, more science than luck. The only thing that doesn’t match — besides the aberration that is SIS — is this bizarre, antiquated and irregular practice of arbitrarily assigning scheduling times to students. This isn’t the 1970s. We aren’t doing this by paper: we can do better.
The system can possibly assign a non-Echols student a scheduling time nearly an entire day after the rest of the class. A perfectly crafted schedule can be dashed, as first comers snatch up desirable classes like “Learn to Groove” or fill up those electives like “Game Theory” that only come around once every three semesters. There’s no justifiable reason for this, why some get all their classes in one shot and some are left scrambling. I can only conjecture that SIS is enacting divine judgement on impenitent scheduling-sinners from times past. There is such an easy answer to this problem too, one that can effectively equalize every scheduling time.
We need a lottery system. I imagine something like the one used for scheduling basketball games, except with students listing out their intended classes in order of priority. Rather than Sabre points — which give a person more ‘names in the bucket’ come ticket-allocating time for sports games — we’d give people more names in the bucket for their preferred classes. Everyone who lists “Introduction to Microeconomics” with Elzinga first would have several more times the chance of getting into the class than someone who listed it fifth. Students could list eight or so classes, and after everyone has scheduled an algorithm would run through every class and run the lottery seat by seat, giving students the closest thing resembling their preferred schedule of 15 credits. Students of higher years and with declared majors would have priority in scheduling, as they do now, and certain major-specific required classes would hold seats for students who need them.
Additionally, as we introduce the concept of ranks and they begin to be valued as an economic resource, courses would naturally go to the students who value them most, as they’d rank them higher. Currently, the students enrolling in the popular classes aren’t necessarily the students who want them most, they’re just the students with the best registration times. The supply isn’t meeting the demand. The regular, tried-and-true system would open up after the lottery. The joy of the lottery is that it would still be unfair when you don’t get your favored class, but it would be equally unfair. Right now some students are getting straight turkey and mashed potatoes and some students are getting just vegetables. There should be a pea in every bite.
The reason this needs to happen, more than the injustice of not getting “Learn to Groove,” is because scheduling classes during my first year orientation last summer was an abject disaster. The yield rate had spiked that spring and hundreds of more students needed to enroll than the administration had anticipated. We who had bad scheduling times had to list out dozens of courses, because earlier registrants had taken all the popular ones. You’d go in pre-Comm and come out with three English classes. All the while, Orientation Leaders were attempting to placate us with stories of how they ended up getting all their classes at semester’s start. That’s a nice thought, but it’s hard to stomach when you get zero of the pre-requirements you need to take and you’re forced to suffer through three waitlists while others get everything they wanted. I made do, of course, but that doesn’t diminish the horror of orientation, nor does it erase the initial problem. In the strictest sense of the word, I suppose the existing scheduling system is fair on the basis that everyone has an equal chance of getting a good scheduling time. But it’s too extreme in its current form. It’s like sending a select few unto the breach while the rest sit by. We should all have to charge into no man’s land. Let’s distribute the punishment.
Brennan Edel is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at b.edel@cavalierdaily.com.
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