It's that crappy time again. It's time to wake up at 5:59 a.m., along with hundreds of other students, click on that familiar link and log into the evil TESS.
It's time to pull your hair out, as you look, panic-stricken, for another class to take because the one you had planned for is already closed.
It's time to refrain from bashing in your computer screen when you see those familiar words, "your login has expired." (And it always expires right as you finish keying in your classes and are just about to click on the submit button.)
It is not a happy time. You must be prepared, especially because this time, in addition to the other problems that come along with the registration process, you are going to have to deal with the effects of the College's transformation process.
We find ourselves in a very unfortunate place within the process. We're in the middle of this grand change, and we're going to have to bear the brunt of all the glitches and problems that arise.
This period of transformation is an all-encompassing process that will affect everything from the design of the College Web page to the type of courses that you take. The actual look and layout of the campus is changing.
The academic courses are changing. In some 10 years or so, the College should be this beautiful and completely new place with a rigorous and challenging academic system. Or, so they say.
The system will be enhanced. But what does that mean, really? For those of you upperclassmen who are mired in a huge morass of work from your senior seminars, your tutorials, your independent studies, or your JPE lesson planning, you wonder, how exactly can they make this any harder?
These enhanced courses, carrying a 32/34 credit load, are wreaking havoc with some students' schedules, especially upperclassmen. We are already settled into our control sheets under the 3-credit system. Adding an extra credit to the classes makes it very difficult for students who were plotting their schedules under the former system.
For some history education majors like my roommate who have to figure in student teaching next year, the four-credit courses are causing a big hassle.
Under the former three-credit system, she could take 14 credits in the fall, including an elective course, and student-teach in the spring. Now that the history department has made all tutorials and classes four credits, she needs to take 18 credits in the fall, and she loses her elective choice. For those of you who are in education, engineering, (and other less flexible majors), you know how precious that one elective choice is.
I digress. What is most important now is dealing with the new system and trying to make the most out of it.
Sure, some of you will be screwed over, but you really have no other choice, short of transferring. The best thing to do will be to learn everything you can about your options under the new system.
My English teacher told me the other day that professors and registration staff will be willing, most likely, to bend over backwards to accommodate us during this change.
Well, it's the least they can do for us, after scrapping the SET and Athens classes for the incoming freshmen.
