Class of 2012... Maybe?

Spring semester 2012 is when I am aiming to graduate; to this date I have been lucky to figure out ways to fit all necessary classes into my schedule as well as find ways into classes I was waitlisted for.

Cal State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB) is a growing school. It is growing into a school that it didn't want to become and I didn't want to attend. Sure it still is not the size of the bigger Cal States like Cal State University Fullerton or Chico State, with more than 15,900 students. There is still the new growth in the student population but lack of growth in class numbers and professors.

This poses a large problem; there are not enough classes for all the students to get the classes they want. After looking over the recommended courses for my concentrations pathway I attempted to make my individual learning plan (a two year plan for upper division) and found that a few of the classes I needed to take were not being offered next semester or at all anymore. I am sure this same thing has happened to other students before and in the end everyone involved suffers. We are stuck taking a class we are less interested in and might not do as well since we have a lack of knowledge, which slows down the rest of the class.

With this lack of classroom space and shortage in teachers what is the school to do? At the moment there is not much anyone can do until we have a better budget. I was told awhile back that they were going to refurbish more of the abandon buildings on the Ord as well as rebuilding the demolished buildings to create more classrooms. With more classrooms or bigger classrooms we will be able to fit more students into a class.

At this point it is more important to get more students into their required classes and not let them wait around extra semesters waiting for the best time slot for registration. How does a regular student even get an early time slot for registration?

I know there are some groups of students that get priority registration because they are involved in the school and have to make sure they can fit in their meetings or practices into their schedules, but how does the average student get to go earlier than all of their friends? When I first came to CSUMB I thought it was by your number of credits and the more credits you had the further up the list you were. Then I thought that it might be by grade point average. Now I just think it is just random.

There needs to be a way for us to reorganize registration and get more students into classes so it is easier for students to graduate in 4 years and not 5. I think if we organize so that students who have more credits go first it will be a lot less stressful.