Shorter add/drop time detrimental to students

By Christine Pao     10/23/08 7:00pm

As a current freshman, I may not yet fully understand the importance of choosing classes or majors. But as a devoted part of the Rice community, I do understand the importance of these choices in shaping our academic paths.The new add/drop deadlines that are being imposed upon us will be completely detrimental to our autonomy as students. Beginning next fall, the amount of time to add a class will be cut in half, and the time period to add a class without a fee will decrease from two weeks to one. Further adding to the pressure of decision making, students will only have five weeks to drop a class, as opposed to the current 10 weeks.

What the administration does not seem to realize is students need the entire 10 weeks to adequately decide whether or not they want to keep their original schedules, and the extra five weeks is a pivotal help in academic planning. The new deadlines will not allow students to sufficiently establish how they feel about certain classes. Sometimes we need a couple of weeks to get a feel for the professor, workload and quality of assignments in order to make a decision about dropping a class, and the new drop deadline completely inhibits our ability to do that. Additionally, it is vital we have enough time to assess the workloads of all our classes combined during the first few weeks of school before deciding to add a class onto our schedules.

While the administration makes a valid point in that later add/drop deadlines allow students to enroll in classes in which they have already missed a significant portion of the material, it is of greater significance that we are allowed to assess this disadvantage by ourselves. You would think that, as Rice students, we would be given the freedom to make our own choices, to weigh our options accordingly and to learn from our mistakes. The new add/drop deadlines, while supposedly proposed with good intentions, simply do not give us the autonomy we deserve as college students, and frankly, I believe they are detrimental to the integrity of the university.

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As for the faculty, I understand earlier add/drop deadlines would be beneficial for finalizing class rosters. And I realize that, considering the projected growth of the university in the next couple of years, the earlier deadlines would aid in the simplicity of the overall process of adding and dropping courses. But a chaotic first few weeks in which class lists are not entirely solidified seems like a much better option than a chaotic future in which students are still scrambling to figure out their majors and academic interests because they weren't given enough leeway to explore Rice's offered classes. So, although I lament the burden this places on professors, I ask them to understand their students will benefit greatly from a bit of added disorder in their class rosters.

The undeniable truth of the matter is the advantages of the new, earlier add/drop deadlines are hugely outweighed by the disadvantages. It is not an obligation of the administration to ensure students do not miss material in a class; rather, it is solely the responsibility of the students themselves. By taking away time to change classes, the administration is consequently exchanging our independence for the convenience of the faculty, a trade-off that is absolutely unacceptable.

Christine Pao is a Martel College freshman.

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