Add classes in first week, profs advise

By Kirstie Hettinga
The Collegian

At the beginning of every semester, students usually find themselves dealing with financial aid, parking and textbooks, in addition to new courses and professors. Some students, though, enter the semester without being enrolled in all of the classes they need.

Tina Beddall of the registration office said the adding and dropping of classes reaches its peak within the first two weeks of a given semester.

This is the time period in which students may add courses without a permission number.

Tuesday, Jan. 30 is the last day of this semester that students can add a course without a permission number.

Peter Tannenbaum of the mathematics department said he discourages students from adding a class too late in the semester, though he said, “there’s not much you can do about it.”

While it varies from class to class, Tannenbaum said adding later in the semester is a problem in some math courses. “You miss the first two lectures,” he said, “you miss the first chapter.”

Tannenbaum said while he doesn’t know if adding later impacts students’ final grades, he thinks it would put the student at a disadvantage, especially because in some courses, the semester builds from the first couple of weeks.

“I don’t think it’s good that students can add up to two weeks,” Tannenbaum said.

Russell Martin of the political science department would agree. Martin said he believes students shouldn’t add a class after the first week because they get too far behind. Political Science 2 is a general education requirement for all students. The department offers as many as 30 sections of the course each semester.

According to Martin, the smaller courses are full, but students who still need the class might be able to get into one of the larger lectures. However, the larger courses may not fit a student’s schedule.

Martin said he had no problem with students dropping courses later in the semester.

“We’re always shuffling,” he said.

Lisa Weston of the English department said students may be able to add a class that is technically full.

Weston recommends that students who are truly interested in a course speak with the professor and ask to sit in on the class to see if a slot opens up. Weston said she is more inclined to let a student add if he or she has been attending the class and is caught up on the coursework.

Weston added that “some professors have fairly stringent attendance policies” and missing class meetings because a student has not added the course does not excuse a student from attendance penalties.

Director of Academic Support and Retention Services Sonya Hildreth said that students who are trying to add units might want to sit in on more than one course and “attend more classes than they might ultimately get into.”

Hildreth said the adding process can be time consuming and students who take responsibility for getting to the classes they need may have better luck at being added when professors see the students’ interest and discipline.

While students may hold off on buying a class textbook until they see if they can actually add the class, Hildreth recommends sharing resources such as textbooks to keep up with the rest of the class.

Susan Bartel, who is in charge of the textbook department of the Kennel Bookstore, said they sell some books as late as finals week and often see a surge in textbook sales around the time of midterms.

Students who are waiting to buy books should be wary. Bartel said the bookstore returns books before spring break if they won’t be needed for the next term.

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