URSA enrollment system needs reforms

Counselor appointments for the day are booked within 30 minutes, UCLA servers are slower than usual, students are wincing at the reminder that going to school means actually having a plan.
Must be enrollment season.

This inevitable quarterly stress is exasperating enough without that horrible moment when one has finally chosen a class, and then must read the unforgiving red print on URSA’s enrollment page. It is quite routine for me to be restricted from at least one of my desired classes, but as my remaining quarters here begin to trim down, it becomes a more than just a nuisance.

Whether it’s a major, class-level, or prerequisite restriction, we often blame none other than the predictably typical culprit ““ budget cuts ““ for their presence.

And with merit, because the cuts demand fewer classes while simultaneously prompting the university to enroll more students.

But while financial restrictions do indeed facilitate the chaos, the fundamental flaws of enrollment have less to do with an absence of money and more with an unclear, out-of-date system.

Departments need to streamline restrictions so that they are less confusing and more just.

The first step in the reform is to reconsider class-level restrictions.

Class level is currently based on units and not year, which seems logical enough. However, consider this scenario and the problem is clear: A student who has made much progress on a major can’t enroll in a junior-restricted requisite. Yet someone who just declared that same major but has 50 units transferred from high school gets the spot instead.

It seems most fair and rational to have the number of units a student has completed within the major, and not necessarily at UCLA, determine their eligibility for a course.

The second and most common flaw stems from the fact that classes are often worth a different number of units at schools other than UCLA, which creates problems when transferring units.

In fact, students frequently complete a prerequisite elsewhere that doesn’t initially qualify at UCLA because it is worth one less unit, said Brian Venner, associate registrar.

Individual departments can resolve the difference in units.
But the obstacles to enrolling, along with all the phone calls and paper work, could easily be avoided.

The university should not approve courses outside UCLA until checking that they satisfy unit requirements.

Lastly, restricting enrollment to majors on the first pass is well-intentioned but can end up creating more roadblocks.

Departments restrict enrollment into certain classes to better serve those who need to complete majors.

Unfortunately, this can hurt the many students who need to complete minors.

Students with minors, who have just as much urgency to graduate, can be restricted from a class that prioritizes major enrollment, extending their time here.

The number of minors at UCLA is quickly growing, as we have an extensive list of 80 to choose from. Now more than ever, it is imperative for departments to stop lagging in expanding first-pass restrictions to include minors.

Departments could start to dissolve discrimination against non-majors by including minors or relaxing restrictions.

While these larger reforms may take time to enforce, the administration should implement a temporary fix.

Every student I know uses the Class Planner application on MyUCLA. Much of the stress of scrambling for a new class after seeing a restriction notification could be altogether avoided if we had knowledge of that restriction while making a schedule.

When a class is added to the planner, a comment should pop up that warns the student if they are ineligible.

This would be presumably easy to do, as the site already notifies students of issues such as conflicting finals.

Small but far-reaching changes to the enrollment system will make the course to graduation much smoother and are worthy endeavors for the university to undertake.

_Trying to get into a restricted class? E-mail Moradi at
[email protected]._
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