By Matt Bisanz
As stressful as course registration is, trying to log in at midnight to get that perfect schedule isn't the biggest problem many students face each semester. Specifically for students in graduate school, one of the biggest problems is finding a way to schedule all of the classes needed to be a full-time student. While a student may be in a specific degree program, such as an MBA in management, or an MA in humanities, when courses are offered are set by their individual departments.
Given that many programs have a specific track of pre-requisites to follow, a student may only be able to take a limited number of courses during a given semester. If those courses are in different departments, they may be scheduled at conflicting times. For example, Quantitative Methods 203 is a co-requisite of Finance 203.
However, given that each chair schedules his or her faculty according to his or her preferences, it is conceivable that there could be a conflict. Even within a single department, if faculty with a unique specialty only want to teach at a specific time, it is possible for a conflict to exist within a department.
Part of the problem is that chairs ask faculty each semester which courses they want to teach. Senior faculty usually get first dibs on courses and also get preferable times.
If that amazing business journalism professor only wants to teach undergraduate seminars for a semester, then the chair, faced with the choice of either scheduling a random adjunct or not running the course at all, may decide it's better to not run the course.
Of course, for the student who needs that course in order to stay in sequence, the alternatives may be to beg for a tutorial, or take a reduced load. For some students, however, this is not an option, as full-time enrollment is required for student loan deferral, continuation of health care and certain federal tax benefits.
Of course, there is no simple answer. At a university with 295 degree programs, there will always be conflicts with required courses. At the undergraduate level, it is not as severe, because most programs incorporate electives that may be substituted during lean semesters. On the other hand, at the graduate level, a student may have no electives whatsoever.
One suggestion might be to lay out the course path each graduate student should follow and use that as a template in building the schedule. Then, instead of chairs having to ask what courses the faculty feel like teaching, they could send a chart showing what courses need to be taught at specific times. Also, if the deans' offices coordinated the course paths, chairs would be discouraged from scheduling all their classes at prime times, like 6:30-8:20 p.m. I know that I would prefer to take a Thursday night 8:30-10:50 p.m. course as opposed to not being able to take a class at all.
Another idea might be to restructure programs so that at least two faculty members can teach every course. That way it won't be a crisis if a faculty member is on sabbatical or unavailable to teach at a certain time. In most fields of study, there are subfields, such as 19th century French literature or American politics. Having a basic level of redundancy so that all courses can be offered, even if only as a tutorial, would prevent some of the major problems from cropping up.
This is particularly true at the graduate level where there may be only one professor who has ever studied a specific topic, let alone taught it.
I remember my freshman year wanting to take a certain course, only to be told that the faculty member who created it had recently retired and that no one else in the department knew how to teach it. I understand every professor can't teach every course, but with the recent and continuing expansion of the faculty, it should be possible to have a backup professor for every course in the catalog.
For those of us who need to study full-time, the release of the schedule can be a time of dread. This isn't because we are afraid of having to take a "bad" professor or having to attend class at an annoying time; it's because there is always the possibility that even with careful planning, we may not be able to take the courses we need.
Hopefully, with time, procedures can be implemented to reduce the variability of the course schedule.
Matt Bisanz is a graduate student. You may e-mail him at mbisan1@pride.hofstra.edu.