It's that time of the year again - the newspapers are out, students are asking other students about classes, and everyone has been pulling out the requirement sheets. That's right, it's beginning to look a lot like registration.
The registration process is confusing, difficult, and only adds to the stress building as the semester progresses. Formerly students would stand in a long line outside Eaton Hall to register. Upon entry to Eaton, students would tell registration assistants which classes they wanted. These classes were then entered into a computer. However, last spring the new SIS Online system allowed students to bypass Eaton Hall and register themselves from the comfort of their room. The administration hit a home run with this one - it's an excellent idea. However, it's much like an analogy I once heard made in reference to communism: it looks good on paper, but doesn't quite work right in real life.
There are two major problems that evolved last week with registration. These issues caused students to spend more time then necessary, upward of two hours, getting the classes they wanted. Firstly, the SIS system just can't handle the capacity that is needed. While this was the third time that SIS Online was used for registration, this past week was the first true test, and the system failed. (Last April only current sophomores, juniors, and seniors registered; This August only incoming freshman registered). Freshman registration this year was split over a two-day period. Engineers went one day and liberal arts the other. There were minimal problems.
However, this time around, the bulk of all four class-years registered within a short three-day period. This caused a constant warning message on the login screen saying "SIS Online is currently experiencing technical difficulties due to the volume of registration requests it is trying to process. We apologize for your inconvenience." What did this mean? Sometimes you could login, other times you couldn't. When you could login, often you would get logged out before you could actually register, or you would be hit by a barrage of error messages including "This form has expired," or the always popular "Unable to connect to the database at this time." This caused many students to be frustrated, trying to avoid missing their current classes and quickly complete the process.
What was the common solution to this problem? Many students ended up leaving their room and heading over to Eaton Hall. Here there was "coaching" available for students who needed help registering, which seemed like almost everyone on campus. "Coaches" had higher-level access to SIS and actually could get into the system and register students. Wow, students had to go to Eaton to register? This sounds strikingly similar to the registration process before SIS Online. However many students were still stuck in their rooms trying to login more than an hour after their time had passed. The result: students in their rooms got closed out of classes because their classmates at Eaton could get in and choose theirs first. That's a shame.
A second problem that occurred was just a matter of red tape. In order to register you must have all financial obligations cleared, your time must have come up and, oh yeah, your advisor had to login to SIS and approve you. I have many friends who fell victim to problems with their advisor getting their approval posted. Perhaps they too had trouble logging in to SIS or simply forgot in the midst of their busy schedules. Regardless, it caused frustrations for many. One friend had an 8 a.m. registration time and was all psyched to register. The result: his advisor did not approve him and it was nearly noon before he could finish the process. He ultimately got shut out of one class he wanted.
Another student had the same problem. She planned to register at noon and easily make her 1:05 p.m. class. Not so. Eventually after many login attempts, she finally got into the system. She then discovered her advisor did not approve her choices. It took over an hour to reach her advisor and finally get into the system. Not only did she miss out on getting the class she wanted, but she missed her class as well.
This problem has the simplest solution: eliminate the necessary advisor approval. A vast majority of students are approved. For each advisor to login and approve his or her advisees wastes valuable time, resources and, most importantly, SIS online capacity. Instead, advisors should post disapproval of students to register. In the rare case a student does not meet with their advisor, or the advisor does not agree with the class selection they can have the system block them from registering. This eliminates the possibility of students who are approved getting locked out and hassled. The burden is reversed this way. If a student is truly not approved, the advisor will have to make SIS Online aware of that.
The next registration period is only a mere five months away. Let's make some changes to the process and make it smoother and less stressful for everyone. I don't want to hear stories again of students spending an hour to login only to find out they are not approved according to SIS, when they actually were. Let's make this technology simplify our lives, not complicate it further.
Josh Belkin is a freshman who has not yet declared a major.
