Paritosh Gaiwak
Paritosh Gaiwak
Pursuing a higher qualification is a significant step for the growth of an individual’s career. In our educational system, the courses an individual opts into the beginning of the semester have a huge impact on the kind of avenues that are opened for them in the future and the direction their career is going to take. Considering the significance of this decision and the dynamic nature of the education imparted to the students, the course add period seems to be too short to accommodate any changes a student might want to make.
My first class this semester was held on Aug. 16. Aug. 22 was the last day to add a course without permission and Aug. 29 was the census. This duration seems to be short when considering the wide array of courses offered to students. Since every class has approximately two lectures in a week, there are a total of four class periods in which a student needs to decide, which is not a reasonable time period.
One may argue that a student should take all the courses that they want to consider and since the drop date is much later than the add date, one could easily drop the courses. However, there are loopholes in this argument. Firstly, some departments have a maximum credit limit and if a student has enrolled in more credit hours than the limit, the courses are dropped at random.
For instance, two of my friends are pursuing master’s degrees in computer science and for the first semester the credit hour limit was nine (i.e. three courses). If they crossed it, one course would be dropped at random from their plan of work every week until they come within the limit of the maximum credit hours.
In such a case, it is not advisable to be enrolled in more than three courses because if a student is enrolled in more than three courses there is always a possibility of one of the courses they like getting dropped, which may force them to take a course which is not to their liking.
Secondly, the courses are taught in depth and in order to truly judge one’s inclination and desire to pursue a course based on its suitability in the overall scheme of things, 14 days seems to be an insufficient period of time. Especially because each of these courses have the potential to provide new directions to an individual’s thinking and can also have a significant impact on the career trajectory of an individual.
There is another major issue that sometimes causes student confusion: not all courses are offered in every semester. For instance, there are some courses that are offered in alternate years. This implies that a student can only take such a course once during their master’s degree. This course may be an important course for their career. Added to the short time available for adding a course, this may lead to complicated thought processes and the decision-making in such cases requires time. Two weeks is too short a period to make such a decision.
It is understandable that a student must not take a new class beyond a point in the semester because a lot of material would have been covered by that time which a student might not be able to catch up to. Instead of 14 days, if even 21 days are offered as add period I feel it would make life much easier for students.
The drop period on the other hand has to be analyzed with a different understanding. This semester, the drop date was Oct. 13. This is a sufficiently long period in my opinion to understand the nature of a course and opt out of it.
However, there is a complication. If a student drops a course after the census date, they get a mark of W on their record, which casts a negative shadow on the overall profile of the student. On the other hand, 14 days is too short a period of time to fully decide whether a student should continue to be enrolled in a course along with being able to score a decent grade in the course.
So effectively, a student cannot drop a course without consequence after the census date. Either this date should be extended, or the necessary amendments need to be made to prevent the negative impact dropping a course can have on a student.
Hence, the add period needs to be extended so as to make decisions easier for a student to make a more informed and mature decision, as well as to minimize the negative effect of dropping a course on the overall profile of a student.