Signing up for classes has always been a source of anxiety for Stevens undergrads, especially Freshman and Sophomores. However, this year the scheduling situation has reached new heights of absurdity. The number of undergraduate students at Stevens who have priority scheduling is simply far too high to remain within reason, and the scheduling system itself is designed in such a way that only magnifies the anxiety caused. As a sophomore, I am scheduling classes on Friday morning, along with most freshman. For the first time my Stevens career, I am wholly unsure if I will be able to take all of my required courses next semester.
By Thursday afternoon, every physical education section other than military/ROTC sections and sports/club sports were full. This is before any sophomore or freshman is able to register unless they have priority scheduling. Stevens undergrads are usually required to take four semesters of physical education, and seniors are strongly advised against taking them — I no longer have the chance to abide by this advice, as I was not offered the opportunity to take a PE class in my fourth semester.
Another major point of concern for me right now is my humanities requirement. As a Computer Science major, I would normally be required to take eight humanities courses, which reasonably works out to one per semester (including CAL-103 and CAL-105, which are required for all undergraduates at Stevens). As of Thursday afternoon, there was not a single humanities class that counts for my requirement with any open seats that doesn’t conflict with a core CS course that I must take next semester. I’m lucky enough to have taken AP Literature & Composition in high school, which allows me to skip one semester of humanities. I was originally planning on applying this credit during the final semester of my senior year, but now I am forced to use it in my fourth semester because I am unable to schedule for any humanities courses. If I did not have the AP credit that I have (which I know many if not most students do not have), I would be completely out of luck, likely having to take multiple humanities courses in one semester later on – I don’t know if this even would be feasible for me, considering credit overages per semester incur large charges that I would not be able to afford.
When I was a freshman, I had planned on taking a Music & Technology minor because music was something I was passionate about. At the time, it seemed that my AP credit made it just feasible for me to do so without credit overages or summer courses, neither of which I could seriously consider. I no longer consider this a possibility. If everything goes well and no additional sections I currently plan to enter fill up (and I am not at all confident that this will occur), I will be at a maximum of 16 credits. Several courses I need to take next semester have only a single section, such as CH 115, or only a single section that doesn’t conflict with other courses that themselves only have a single section, such as MA 222 and CS 392. As such, if any one of those three sections fill up before I am allowed to enter them on Friday morning, I will need to be signed into them. There is no guarantee that I will be allowed to do that, as oftentimes it’s simply not possible for sections to exceed capacity by too much. I vividly remember the first week of my first CS course, CS 115, in which there were several students sitting on the floor during each lecture because the class had been booked beyond NB 105’s capacity.
The real-life problems that I am facing (inability to sign up for required humanities and physical education courses; precarious prerequisite chains that could unravel with any course; greatly reduced ability to pursue a minor; general anxiety and skepticism about my future here) derive from two major reasons which I ascribe to policy decisions by Stevens.
First, there are too many students with priority scheduling. Currently, priority scheduling (which allows students to register for classes before anyone else) is granted to SGA senators, resident assistants, athletes (including those currently trying out), Pinnacle scholars, Clarke scholars, anyone on co-op, and members of the Honor Board. Some of these groups have clear needs to schedule their classes before the general student body and should maintain their priority scheduling classes. Athletes who have practices during the week, for example. However, priority scheduling must be limited to specific, bounded groups of students that actually need to register for classes before others due to obligational constraints in their availability during the week. For example, resident assistants must attend mandatory all-staff meetings during the week, so they need to ensure that they are not forced to take classes during those times. However, athletes that are currently trying out and may not actually commit to joining their teams should not get priority scheduling before it is certain that they will actually have those obligations. I personally know at least two people who have told me that they are “trying out” until scheduling and then will be dropping out, specifically so they can register before their peers. Also, Pinnacle scholars are not required to take their designated sections. There was a discussion recently in the Pinnacle official Slack workspace as to whether or not it was preferable to enter the S (scholar) section of PEP 112 or not. Members of the Pinnacle program should not be given priority scheduling if they are not obligated to take specific sections of courses. SGA senators should not be given priority scheduling if they are not obligated to attend meetings or events during the week. Members of the Honor Board should not be given priority scheduling if they are not obligated to attend hearings or other such meetings during class hours. I should not have to pray Friday morning that my internet connection is faster than my peers so that I may graduate on time.
The secondary reason is more diluted. There are more students on campus now than ever before, but theoretically this shouldn’t have affected my scheduling much because classes are generally separated by class year. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with many classes. The Clarke scholar program is new this year, and there are more SGA senators than ever before, which means there has been a large increase in the number of students with priority scheduling. Beginning this semester, academic breaks were severely reduced to only 3-5pm on Wednesdays. This means that even if organizations such as Residential Education wanted to ensure member availability by scheduling during academic break, they no longer can be confident that their members will actually be available because of increased competition for the reduced time. Honor Board hearings have to occur during these brief times, which almost certainly will have time conflicts with other prior obligations (this has occurred to me personally with regards to an Honor Board case I was supposed to be a witness in). If academic breaks were restored to their former duration, organizations would have much more leeway to schedule required events during times when students will actually be available, rather than requiring their members be allowed to pick all of their classes prior to anyone else.
In conclusion, Stevens has constructed a system of first-class and second-class citizens. The first-class prioritized students enjoy broad discretion in how they manage their time and their lives on campus, while the second-class ordinary students are left picking through the scraps left by those prioritized, praying that they can piece together a schedule that at least lets them graduate on time without incurring additional charges. Unless Stevens begins to take measures to address this issue as soon as they can, us second-class students will graduate resenting the institution that told us we were not as important as our peers. I call upon Stevens administrators to restore academic breaks to their previous duration, ensure that those who truly need to register early due to enforced obligations can do so, and, beyond that, end the disparity that is threatening the experience of those like me and the legacy of Stevens as it exists in our minds.
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