The Joys of Enrolment
I have been a student for quite some time now, and have therefore been through the joys of enrolment and subject selection many times. Now my course is not exactly straight-forward in terms of course planning (it has a handbook that rivals War and Peace), and this has been further complicated by my transferring from another university part-way through my course.
However, I have not had the best luck as far as enrolment and subject selection at universities is concerned. In my first ever semester at university it took me not one but two whole days to enrol. These weren’t the usual midday to 2 in the afternoon university days. These were days where one would turn up at nine in the morning to wait in a queue for hours on end, just to be told that you were in the wrong queue.
After moving to Australia I thought my prospects would improve. Surely, here was a university perched high on the pedestal of technology. One not plagued by the human element, and therefore more effective. Surely.
Nope. Every semester, without fail, since I moved to this land of opportunity I have had a problem with either my enrolment or subject selection. I admit that a couple of these have been due to legitimate stuff-ups on my part, or that of the course advisor. However this semester was something special. I even had an email from the Academic Programs Manager for our department, informing me that she was unable to access or change my subject selection, and that it had been forwarded up the food-chain to the Faculty. That’s progress for you.
Today was the first day of the second week of second semester, and my subject selection for this entire year has finally been approved. I was alerted to this fact by an, albeit amiably-worded, email late this afternoon. The automated system does seem to have problems dealing with course plans outside the normal scope, but at least it’s nice about finally correcting its shortcomings. Now there’s software design! I think I prefer the two-day long queues. At least there’s a sense of certainty and purpose about them.
July 31st, 2007 at 10:43 am
There was once when I wasn’t enrolled in the subject until exam timetables came out. I had been submitting projects and getting marks during semester…
It was the first semester that I had come to this uni and I had prerequisites waved for some subjects. However, I updated some electives which made all subjects be re-entered into the system. Long story short, they were not approved and dropped (without notification to me). Back then, the lab enrollment system was done on the CS machines and not centrally and I was none the wiser until I one day asked where I was going to be sitting for my exam. And the lecturer said it’s in your exam timetable, and I was like… it’s not on my exam time table. Haha.
July 31st, 2007 at 10:49 pm
you could go back to nz and wait for them to send your mum the books to prepare the home schooling you were recieving before gracing us with your presence… at least then you know someone is looking after you willzie
August 1st, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Dana, that’s classic! It really is a testament to all this labour-saving technology that such a large number of students have problems with poorly designed student management systems, isn’t it? I’m sure that the course advisor for the Engineering Faculty would have had to review at least half of the subject selections for people past second year. The majority of cases just requiring a button-click most likely!
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Be please there exist electronic systems at all.
The French department at MU still use the oh-so-bohemian sheet-of-paper-on-the-wall method to sign up their tute classes.
Nothing like a bit of push and shove for that last place in the class.
*sigh*
August 4th, 2007 at 1:18 am
Ahh, but the French Department is allowed to be bohemian, it’s part of their quaint charm. But the Engineering Department, surely, should be at least somewhat up with the play?