Editorial: Enrollment system at odds with student needs

As students prepare to sign up for the next quarter of classes,
they face an array of roadblocks that will make the process more
difficult than it should be. From picking classes to evaluating
professors, students must navigate through arcane regulations and
rely on cumbersome Web sites. The end result is a system that
demands a lot from students, but makes it hard to craft a four-year
plan.

Over the years, UCLA has implemented numerous policies designed
to hurry students though the school as quickly and efficiently as
possible. The expected cumulative progress policy requires students
to accumulate a certain number of units after their second, fourth,
sixth, eighth, and 10th and 12th quarters.

The similar minimum progress requirement requires that students
take at least 13 units per quarter.

And for most students there is a maximum unit cap pegged at 216
““ ensuring they focus on classes which will move them toward
graduation.

For some students, these policies create serious problems; they
are forced to cram full- or part-time jobs, class and social lives
into impossibly small days. But even the most successful students
can find them restricting if forced to take four classes when
they’d rather concentrate on doing well in three.

The priority enrollment system means that athletes, honors
students and freshmen in GE clusters have early access to classes
““ sometimes even earlier than students two or three years
their senior. Tough luck if you are a regular fourth-year who
really needs that class to graduate.

But even once your enrollment time comes up, there can be
complications.

The URSA Web site isn’t very intuitive or helpful in
choosing classes, and is showing its age. Some classes have no
specific professor listed, some are listed under multiple names in
different departments or have temporary names that do not reflect
the actual subject of the class until well after the sign-up
time.

Other classes have strict prerequisites which prevent you from
signing up for them, even if you know you could handle the
material.

Departmental restrictions make sense but some interdepartmental
students are barred from enrolling in classes they need because
they are limited to students in the department until the second
enrollment pass.

And the wait-list system means that you never know if you are
going to get into a class you really need ““ you might get
lucky and have a professor who enrolls everyone, or you might spend
a week or two begging for a PTE number.

Conscientious students who want to plan ahead will find their
efforts hampered by the lack of information on the
registrar’s site: winter and spring classes are not listed
early enough in the year to allow students to make concrete sample
schedules.

If UCLA expects students to sail through school in four years,
the enrollment system and the URSA site must be amended to
facilitate ““ rather than hinder ““ this objective.