In the Dark
At the beginning of November, most students are emerging from the stress of midterms (or the recovery period following Halloween festivities). Once we’ve seemingly passed the finish line, however, pre-registration for the spring semester beckons — and missing descriptions for many of the courses on the MyAccess class schedule don’t help one bit.
It’s a simple enough problem, but the inconvenience is undeniable. If courses have to go through a rigorous process for approval by a department, why is it so difficult to provide a few paragraphs describing the content of the course? Pre-registration is already a stressful time for students; when setting their schedules, students must satisfy rigorous credit requirements in major and minor subjects while being mindful of the specific classes — and professors — they might enjoy.
Missing descriptions are particularly inconvenient for freshmen and transfer students pre-registering for the fall semester, as they are likely unfamiliar with the pre-registration process, as well as each department and its offerings. These students, more than others, require clear, concise descriptions of potential courses on MyAccess as they attempt to navigate pre-registration amid logistical obstacles or confusion stemming from inexperience.
Some course listings lacking brief descriptions do provide course syllabuses. These syllabuses, like those handed out in class, are in-depth outlines of the specific material that courses cover. While these syllabuses are helpful, in the middle of the pre-registration rush, it’s more useful for students to have a succinct description for each course at their disposal as well.
Some departments’ and subjects’ course listings are more severely affected by this lack of information than others — English, government, classical studies and international affairs especially. In addition, foreign language, economics and history classes all have several descriptions missing.
These missing descriptions are not restricted to these departments, however. Students of every subject are affected in their course searches, and the onus is on academic departments and professors to provide sufficient course descriptions on MyAccess.
Georgetown’s technology woes are no secret. Even to reach the course catalog from MyAccess requires clicking on five separate links to conduct a course search. It seems counterintuitive to complicate a process that is as inconvenient for administrators (who inevitably deal with frustrated students’ inquiries about description-less courses) as it is for students.
Ideally, pre-registration for classes would be a straightforward exercise, but in reality, it’s a nightmare. Filling the course description voids on MyAccess would help relieve us of the horror.
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Nov 06 2009 at 9:33 p.m.
As a (somewhat) recent graduate, I totally agree with this article. I recall it being particularly frustrating not knowing what the particular bent or focus of a particular class was until three or four meetings into the semester...at which point it was too late to drop or else too late to really shop around for another class (a problem made worse by the lack of course descriptions!). It would have been great to know what I was in for ahead of time.
In contrast to Georgetown's model, my law school (which was lackluster in so many other ways...) published very detailed course descriptions and--for better or worse--published the average grade students received in each class months before the start of the semester. This made selecting interesting (or unchallenging, if that was the goal) courses much easier. For undergrad, I don't know if I'm wild about posting the average grade, but a meaningful course description would be very helpful.
To avoid putting the oh-so-heavy burden of writing a few paragraphs on the faculty, the school might consider a compromise: publish a course calendar well in advance of the start of the semester so students can plan their schedule and look into particular classes before the crunch of pre-registration, giving them ample time to gather as yet unpublished info. I know professors cringe at the idea of having to plan (and stick to) their schedules a few months in advance, but it can't be worse than not knowing until only hours before your stuck with it.