I have no class. No, not in the “I wear rayon, leopard print thongs, am oblivious to my orange skin, and enjoy bl*wing a new fraternity brother every weekend” sort of way.

I’ve just dropped all of my classes, but deflect all blame for my classless tendencies. Just like someone from New Jersey would. If I fancied similes, I’d say pre-registration looked like a robust tree in my backyard; it is now winter and each class has fallen like a rotten crab apple — stubbornly, one by one.

To be melodramatic: it’s the second week of classes, and I’m cold, starving, and distraught. As Christina Domenico pointed out in a DP column last week, other top universities (e.g. Harvard, Yale, Stanford) try to combat first-week apocalypses. They have what is known as a “shopping period.” It is similar to our add/drop period, yet a a consumer-friendly title adorns students’ transition. 

Seeing that Penn students enjoy nothing more than spending money, a “shopping period” clarifies what students are doing anyway: dropping in and out of classes. Yet this system has recently come under criticism. Many professors are too vain to subject themselves to bargain hunters and window shoppers. Even though we’re the ones paying $40,000 a year, they do not accord us our consumers’ rights. 

Therefore, professors should be required to post their syllabi online, in the main offices of departments, or at least in the back of classrooms. This way, we can weigh the pros and cons of a class before wasting mutual time and money. 

Tags: add/drop, confusion

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 24th, 2008 at 12:33 am and is filed under Penn. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.