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New political science policy restrictions more troublesome than helpful

By Salim Zymet

Nov. 28, 2010 11:20 p.m.

A long line of “closed” in the right-hand column of the registrar page is the common theme among most political science courses, lower division or otherwise. Even Friday morning discussions fill up fast. This isn’t the political science department’s fault so much as it is a symptom of how many students are in the department.

But with a new rule which goes into effect next fall, the department has attempted to make it easier to get into upper division courses by forcing students to complete their lower divisions before enrolling.

Currently, students are given tons of flexibility within the major, with 24 upper division and four lower division courses offered for the winter quarter alone.
These new rules make sense on paper, but in practice they unnecessarily reduce the freedom students need to make the most out of their time at UCLA.

Although the new restrictions only affect students during the first pass of enrollment, they will make it harder for those students considering the major to get the feel of an upper division course.

Also, these rules will make getting into lower division courses a huge headache for such students unless the department significantly increases the number of seats available. Students need the freedom to choose for themselves whether or not they’re ready to take an upper division course.

The rationale for the change is that it will combat the overcrowding in upper division courses and the large number of advanced students in lower division courses. This makes it hard for professors to balance teaching those who know relatively little and those who are already acquainted with the field, said Kathleen Bawn, the vice chair for undergraduate studies of the political science department.

As a transfer student, I spent a year and a half tailoring my schedule so as to take the best professors and courses offered by the department. This meant avoiding, for an entire year, any lower division courses. Ironically but unsurprisingly, my last political science course at UCLA was a lower division one. Bawn and the political science department made the change in the hope of deterring students from doing exactly what I did.

Bawn said that more spaces have been added to lower division courses to help students graduate on time. Those undergrads who fail to finish the requirements this year will be competing with each other to get into lower division courses next fall, which will likely prompt an increase in class sizes from the department. This, I believe, will inevitably lead to a decrease in the quality of education. Political science courses have pushed past 400 students in the past.

Whether or not the department can add enough spaces to these already jam-packed classes, which often fill before freshmen and sophomores’ first passes, remains to be seen.

Transfers also get the short end of the stick in these new rules. Although an admittedly noble goal, the result of the change will essentially force transfer students who may not have had access to the right lower division political science courses at their junior college to take those lower division courses again after they transfer. This will inevitably result in students taking courses they would otherwise do their best to avoid.

Because of the seasonal nature of many courses in the political science department, it also means that many transfer students will miss out on the best courses and professors that the department has to offer. Perhaps the department could make an exception to this rule for transfer students who are accepted but have not completed their lower division requirements.

It makes sense, in a perfect world, for students to complete their lower division requirements before moving on to the upper division coursework. But the political science department has gone overboard in response to this minor problem and has created more problems than it sought to solve.

E-mail Zymet at [email protected].
Send general comments to [email protected].

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