Courses and Professors Listed in the College Catalog Might Not Be Available
Secret #2 Courses and Professors Listed in the College Catalog Might Not Be Available
Yes, a course you want to take is listed in the college catalog or online. But when you try to register for it, you learn that it’s now offered only every two years, instead of every second semester. Or you fire up your laptop on course registration day and discover that the courses you need have been filled and closed out, all in the first five minutes – and you can’t get in.
“There are moans of disbelief when the computer lines open for course registration,” says a sophomore at a large Midwestern university. “Because all the best courses close out within seconds, getting the courses you want is kind of like winning the lottery.”
A similar problem is cited by another student, a junior at a private college on the West Coast. She says, “To fulfill the requirements I need for my psychology major, I need to take a course that won’t be offered during my senior year. What am I supposed to do? Come back to take just one course in a fifth year of college? My parents are going berserk over this one.” It’s become a growing problem at many colleges across the country.
In fact, a recent post on the eHow blog offered strategies to help students get into courses officially listed as ‘closed out.’
Another problem: Students arrive on campus and find that the college’s most famous professors haven’t taught in a classroom for years. They do research, only showing up once a year to deliver a lecture. The college just keeps their names “on the books” to attract students.