Getting into sought-after classes sometimes requires using permission slips or bending the rules, but sometimes even those methods can't guarantee a seat.
Students' first solution for scheduling squeezes are permission slips. Referred to as pink slips
permission slips are arrangements with professors to attend a particular class that isn't available for any of a number of reasons.
Permission slips, however, are not foolproof, noted Zach Swartz, a junior studying journalism.
Late last spring, Swartz looked to get into a higher-level magazine course that required permission from the professor and a prerequisite that he didn't have.
We actually had to wait in line outside the professor's door. You couldn't even schedule it via the regular way Swartz said.
After taking his slip to the registrar's office, Swartz was told to have his professor mark that the class was full in addition to waiving the prerequisite requirement. The class had shown up on the course offerings Web page as full, with zero out of zero students enrolled, which required the professor to waive the class size constraint as well.
Other students resort to more underhanded approaches.
Honors Tutorial College students of every year are among the earliest students to schedule. The notion is that, if timed well, an Honors Tutorial student could essentially reserve a seat for another student by enrolling and dropping the class moments before the non-honors student enrolled, explained Tom Wagener, a senior Honors Tutorial student.
I've had people ask me ... but I never have. It's not like I find it hugely egregiously wrong but it's against the college's policy
and the college has done a lot for me
he said.
Claudia Hale, director of the School of Communication Studies said that many of the problems students have with graduating on time are based on individual students' circumstances.
We find that often students who are affected the worst are the ones that come to our school in their junior year and don't communicate well with their adviser
she said.
The School of Communication Studies is only one department at Ohio University that has to deal with class availability while maintaining a reasonable faculty to student ratio, she added.
I have a very cracked crystal ball that I'm trying to look at to determine how many seats I need to have to satisfy student demand
she said.
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Adam Liebendorfer
