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Drop current policy and add more days

If it hasn’t happened to you, it’s happened to someone you know. You begin the semester bursting with excitement. You awoke early on your course sign-up day and managed to get into all your first choices. But just as the first week of classes comes to a close, you realize one of your courses really isn’t going to work out. You make an appointment with your academic counsellor to switch into a different course, but are firmly told you’ve missed the boat.

Sometimes it seems the add/drop period here at Western is specifically designed to create problems for students. This year it lasted from January 9 to January 17—a grand total of eight days. That’s eight measly days to decide whether or not a course, in which you will be spending at least four months of your life in, is the right fit.

Eight days right at the beginning of the semester simply isn’t enough time to make an informed decision about a course. The current system typically provides students with, at most, two real lectures with which to make their decision, because let’s face it, everyone knows the first lecture in a course is usually reserved for an overview of the course and syllabus. Many professors don’t really get into the meat of the course until a few lectures in.

The University should give students more time to really get a handle on their courses and professors before ending their opportunity to switch out of a course. It doesn’t even need to be much longer—a few more days would easily suffice.

The short add/drop period’s only saving grace is that it potentially prevents students from switching into a class late enough that they are unable to catch up on the work. I admit, it’s probably in a students best interest not to be allowed to switch into a course weeks into the semester. The assignments, readings and missed classes pile up faster than many people realize. But really, a few extra days to catch up likely wouldn’t be that much of a problem, and if the administration really cared about missed lectures, they would make attendance mandatory.

Realistically, students who miss the add/drop period don’t just give up, either. They will either beg and plead for special permission to pick up a class, or just drop the class and overload in their next semester. This, funnily enough, will probably give the frustrated student an even harder time than having to catch up on a class in the beginning few weeks of a semester.

I will give it to the administration that they do an adequate job of informing the students ahead of time as to when the add/drop period ends. Other than sending a mass email a few days in advance, which they do, there isn’t really much else the university can do to advertise session dates that have been up on the academic calendar since the summer.

Students who simply forget about the add/drop period aren’t the ones who deserve consideration in this. It’s the students who simply need more time to get a feel for whether or not they will be successful in their courses. And really, we students deserve every chance possible to succeed—after all, we pay enough for the privilege.

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