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>Aafia Ahmad, a sophomore computer science major at U.T. Austin, had hoped to take an elective course in computer security this semester. But when she tried to

>Aafia Ahmad, a sophomore computer science major at U.T. Austin, had hoped to take an elective course in computer security this semester. But when she tried to sign up during early registration in November, the course was already full. I know this doesn't refute the point the article is trying to make, but it doesn't seem that unreasonable to me that an underclassman might not get into a highly sought after elective. A lot of the "fun" electives when I was in school were little passion projects taught by one professor for one or two small sections a semester (or maybe only one semester per year), and while I agree it sucks that not everyone can take the classes, I wouldn't want them to die out because of complaints along the lines of "if you can't accommodate everyone, don't offer the course". Not that the article is saying that should be the case, I just worry that too many complaints about this kind of thing just puts pressure on the good professors who put enough effort into a class that a bunch of people want to take it.

bytematic 8y ago
At my uni the class sizes were huge, usually 1:300-400, and they only offer 1-2 possible class times. It feels like staff are dropping left and right so the profs that stay on are forced to do this. Many cs/engineering kids cant take the intro classes for a couple semesters, many upperclassmen can't take courses which are only offered in spring or only fall.
- sieabahlpark 8y ago
  My tuition would keep going up so I don't know why they can't afford to pay more professors.
jandrese 8y ago
I had to write a script to constantly monitor my school's class scheduling system to get into a couple of classes. It was an interesting script because the system was an IBM 3270 style mainframe.
- seltzered_ 8y ago
  This has been a thing for a long time. Back around 2003-2004 people at UTexas used a site called classgrabber. Back then people would also oversignup to classes then leave them after the first few class days of it didn’t work with schedule/etc.
  - jandrese 8y ago
    I got into the AI class at my school (it was not overbooked) only to discover that I didn't have the necessary math background. Also, the class was going to be all math and wouldn't involve computers. It was not what I was expecting at all. Ended up dropping it after a week.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  How did you test such a script? I always thought about doing this, but since class signups only opened twice a year (once per semester), and that was the same time I needed to actually sign up for the classes, I concluded there would never be a time to debug and refine such a script.
  - EE84M3i 8y ago
    When I was in school, I just had a python script that diffed the relevant part of the web page, and sent an email/SMS to my cell phone on any changes in the output. It didn't automatically do the registration though, which would have been slick.
    - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
      Ah, sounds like your school's setup was different than mine. Our class signups opened once, at a set time and day, and it was just a matter of clicking the signup button fast enough. If people dropped, the spots would go to people on a waitlist, also determined at the original signup time.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Balgair 8y ago
At UCLA, the Film major is notorious for being difficult to get into. Some colleges have majors that they are 'known' for. Supply-and-demand being what it is, this makes it difficult to get into these programs. That's not to say that you can't take a few classes in those programs every now and again. If anything, having a bit of that in-demand major (and having a broader knowledge base with another major/minor) is better than having none of it. When it comes to learning, perfect is the enemy of good.
verall 8y ago
I attend UT Austin and it's pretty well known the CS school is particularly overcrowded, especially wrt lack of professors. Its ranking went up a lot somewhat recently, so I think its a growing pains thing. ECE is a bigger major but we don't have the same problems because the department has been around longer and growth not so fast.
- qdog 8y ago
  There's also decent CS programs in other schools in that area, if someone really wants study CS and can't get into UT's program.
asdff 8y ago
A couple of my friends in the CSE program (not at texas though) had to take on a 5th year due to the poor scheduling. Doesn't help that you have to apply to the program after you are already a freshman, so if you bomb a tough math or physics class your first semester you are set back pretty far and have to build up your GPA to even get into the major.
- vowelless 8y ago
  That sounds reasonable.
  - loganfrederick 8y ago
    Not when one bad grade is due to a notoriously bad teacher. One poor professor should not be able to threaten a student's future by forcing them to change majors to be able to graduate without an additional $10K or more of debt.
  - yroc92 8y ago
    Why? Why does this have to be the way that college works? Seems highly ineffective.
  - asdff 8y ago
    As a consequence of people entering the program at different times, required classes and electives are a blood sport to schedule. Some courses are only offered in fall or spring with a prerequisite class to be completed to schedule, so you could have to literally wait and sit with a very light schedule for a semester because you were a half semester off the 4 year trajectory, or the class was full and you have to wait until it's offered again. This ultimately wastes a lot of your time at college. I bet if scheduling was completely painless and not constrained around classes with a waitlist double the size of the class, and you could take your required classes any semester you'd like, people could get the CSE degree in 3 years and save quite a lot on tuition.
- tedmiston 8y ago
  You can workaround this with advance planning though. I wasn't affected by bombing any classes and got direct admit to CS [^1], but there were classes of interest offered only once a year which filled up quickly. I just took them e.g., a year early than expected to make up for that or disregarded the prereqs and learned just enough on the fly. Another technique that helps is emailing the professor in advance of registration or after it's full and letting them how interested you are. Even better if you can stop by their office in person. Another trick is to get into your school's Honors program which typically allows early registration vs non-Honors. There were also 1-2 courses I audited for knowledge instead of officially taking which let me invest in basic learning without adding the pressure of a grade to a heavy course load. Ideally everyone would have an academic advisor that lets them know this kind of thing in advance. If I were graduating high school today, I would give serious consideration to Lambda School instead of a CS degree; though I also believe that we haven't seen enough time pass for the long-term implications of a decision like this to play out yet (e.g., future career discrimination based on lack of degree). [^1]: I feel for people that don't get direct admit into their engineering major. This part feels unfair IMO. I think that everyone should be able to start in their desired major by default and disqualify out vs default out and qualify in.
fatnoah 8y ago
I learned a "trick" to getting into these types of courses when I was in college. I was always polite to the department secretaries and treated them like human beings instead of people who exist only to serve me. The number of other students that failed to treat the department staff like people always shocked me. In any case, they were almost always able to just add me to classes, even when the registrar indicated they were full.
- tedmiston 8y ago
  ^ This I worked in the CS Dept in college and this is a big one. Everyone in the department is there to support you and is happy to help, and the chair too. It's surprising how few CS students actually take advantage of these resources. You can also use this to get into grad classes as an undergrad even if the course scheduling system blocks you. Signing up on a course waitlist also helps give the department more info to be able to potentially move it to a bigger room or add additional sections.
- lenticular 8y ago
  There's often the ability for professors to accept more than the limit on a case-by-case basis, at their discretion. If you approach a professor and come across as a motivated and serious student, there's a good chance you'll be able to get in. Contrary to popular belief, most professors care about undergraduate education and want to help motivated students.

bytematic 8y ago

At my uni the class sizes were huge, usually 1:300-400, and they only offer 1-2 possible class times. It feels like staff are dropping left and right so the profs that stay on are forced to do this. Many cs/engineering kids cant take the intro classes for a couple semesters, many upperclassmen can't take courses which are only offered in spring or only fall.

sieabahlpark 8y ago
My tuition would keep going up so I don't know why they can't afford to pay more professors.

jandrese 8y ago

I had to write a script to constantly monitor my school's class scheduling system to get into a couple of classes. It was an interesting script because the system was an IBM 3270 style mainframe.

seltzered_ 8y ago
This has been a thing for a long time. Back around 2003-2004 people at UTexas used a site called classgrabber. Back then people would also oversignup to classes then leave them after the first few class days of it didn’t work with schedule/etc.
- jandrese 8y ago
  I got into the AI class at my school (it was not overbooked) only to discover that I didn't have the necessary math background. Also, the class was going to be all math and wouldn't involve computers. It was not what I was expecting at all. Ended up dropping it after a week.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
Wowfunhappy 8y ago
How did you test such a script? I always thought about doing this, but since class signups only opened twice a year (once per semester), and that was the same time I needed to actually sign up for the classes, I concluded there would never be a time to debug and refine such a script.
- EE84M3i 8y ago
  When I was in school, I just had a python script that diffed the relevant part of the web page, and sent an email/SMS to my cell phone on any changes in the output. It didn't automatically do the registration though, which would have been slick.
  - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    Ah, sounds like your school's setup was different than mine. Our class signups opened once, at a set time and day, and it was just a matter of clicking the signup button fast enough. If people dropped, the spots would go to people on a waitlist, also determined at the original signup time.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Balgair 8y ago

At UCLA, the Film major is notorious for being difficult to get into. Some colleges have majors that they are 'known' for. Supply-and-demand being what it is, this makes it difficult to get into these programs. That's not to say that you can't take a few classes in those programs every now and again. If anything, having a bit of that in-demand major (and having a broader knowledge base with another major/minor) is better than having none of it. When it comes to learning, perfect is the enemy of good.

verall 8y ago

I attend UT Austin and it's pretty well known the CS school is particularly overcrowded, especially wrt lack of professors. Its ranking went up a lot somewhat recently, so I think its a growing pains thing. ECE is a bigger major but we don't have the same problems because the department has been around longer and growth not so fast.

qdog 8y ago
There's also decent CS programs in other schools in that area, if someone really wants study CS and can't get into UT's program.

asdff 8y ago

A couple of my friends in the CSE program (not at texas though) had to take on a 5th year due to the poor scheduling. Doesn't help that you have to apply to the program after you are already a freshman, so if you bomb a tough math or physics class your first semester you are set back pretty far and have to build up your GPA to even get into the major.

vowelless 8y ago
That sounds reasonable.
- loganfrederick 8y ago
  Not when one bad grade is due to a notoriously bad teacher. One poor professor should not be able to threaten a student's future by forcing them to change majors to be able to graduate without an additional $10K or more of debt.
- yroc92 8y ago
  Why? Why does this have to be the way that college works? Seems highly ineffective.
- asdff 8y ago
  As a consequence of people entering the program at different times, required classes and electives are a blood sport to schedule. Some courses are only offered in fall or spring with a prerequisite class to be completed to schedule, so you could have to literally wait and sit with a very light schedule for a semester because you were a half semester off the 4 year trajectory, or the class was full and you have to wait until it's offered again. This ultimately wastes a lot of your time at college. I bet if scheduling was completely painless and not constrained around classes with a waitlist double the size of the class, and you could take your required classes any semester you'd like, people could get the CSE degree in 3 years and save quite a lot on tuition.
tedmiston 8y ago
You can workaround this with advance planning though. I wasn't affected by bombing any classes and got direct admit to CS [^1], but there were classes of interest offered only once a year which filled up quickly. I just took them e.g., a year early than expected to make up for that or disregarded the prereqs and learned just enough on the fly. Another technique that helps is emailing the professor in advance of registration or after it's full and letting them how interested you are. Even better if you can stop by their office in person. Another trick is to get into your school's Honors program which typically allows early registration vs non-Honors. There were also 1-2 courses I audited for knowledge instead of officially taking which let me invest in basic learning without adding the pressure of a grade to a heavy course load. Ideally everyone would have an academic advisor that lets them know this kind of thing in advance. If I were graduating high school today, I would give serious consideration to Lambda School instead of a CS degree; though I also believe that we haven't seen enough time pass for the long-term implications of a decision like this to play out yet (e.g., future career discrimination based on lack of degree). [^1]: I feel for people that don't get direct admit into their engineering major. This part feels unfair IMO. I think that everyone should be able to start in their desired major by default and disqualify out vs default out and qualify in.

fatnoah 8y ago

I learned a "trick" to getting into these types of courses when I was in college. I was always polite to the department secretaries and treated them like human beings instead of people who exist only to serve me. The number of other students that failed to treat the department staff like people always shocked me. In any case, they were almost always able to just add me to classes, even when the registrar indicated they were full.

tedmiston 8y ago
^ This I worked in the CS Dept in college and this is a big one. Everyone in the department is there to support you and is happy to help, and the chair too. It's surprising how few CS students actually take advantage of these resources. You can also use this to get into grad classes as an undergrad even if the course scheduling system blocks you. Signing up on a course waitlist also helps give the department more info to be able to potentially move it to a bigger room or add additional sections.
lenticular 8y ago
There's often the ability for professors to accept more than the limit on a case-by-case basis, at their discretion. If you approach a professor and come across as a motivated and serious student, there's a good chance you'll be able to get in. Contrary to popular belief, most professors care about undergraduate education and want to help motivated students.