Last Thursday, Vanderbilt students got the news they’ve been waiting for since the first time they used OASIS — a new class registration program is on the horizon. As great as this news is, Vanderbilt could go a step farther and make this change more meaningful by revamping the registration process as a whole.
It should come as no surprise that the dinosaur of all registration programs is on its way out. If Vanderbilt Student Government needs to send an email to the whole student body detailing how not to overload OASIS, then it’s pretty obvious that the program is outdated, ineffective and useless. I say good riddance to this stupid program which has had the net effect of making students’ lives harder instead of easier, and I applaud VSG for sticking to its word and replacing the system.
Still, Vandy students will have to contend with OASIS for one more semester, and there is one way the administration could improve the experience. The “class rolls” option, which was available on the school’s website until last year, could be brought back in order to reduce the amount of traffic on OASIS. This option allowed students to print out a copy of their schedules (which included room numbers and a nice tabular setup), and students could also look at a list of their classmates.
The advantages are obvious: Students can view their schedules without clogging up the 250-member capacity OASIS, and they can actually print out their schedules (personally, I can never get OASIS to do this). Also, for those of us whose teachers may not be tech-savvy enough to set up OAK for their classes, a list of classmates is available for purposes of contacting for help or stalking on Facebook. Actually, it doesn’t make sense that this valuable tool disappeared in the first place.
I think it’s important to think about what really makes OASIS a hassle, though. Yes, it’s an ancient program that was probably invented when we were in middle school, but maybe the real problem is the way Vanderbilt conducts registration.
Many schools have a registration process that runs more smoothly than ours does. At these institutions, registration is tapered by grade, giving upperclassmen priority status and avoiding overloading registration programs. Students at these schools can discover instantly whether or not they are enrolled in a class, as opposed to here where we find out two or three weeks before the semester starts, giving us less time to wheedle our way into the classes we need to fulfill AXLE or major requirements.
Additionally, this sort of registration process would allow students to shop around more for deals on books rather than having to rely solely on the bookstore; having two months versus two weeks can ensure that students get the most bang for their buck (as long as the professors actually let them know what books they need, of course).
However, these schools do not necessarily have a “course request period,” which may make it more difficult to predict what classes and how many sections of each class to offer. Additionally, students who aren’t dead set on their classes would probably be at a disadvantage as well.
Our registration process obviously has a lot of advantages and disadvantages. Replacing OASIS makes the process much easier on students, but it is not necessarily a cure-all solution for registration problems.
—Aimee Sobhani is junior in the College of Arts and Science. She can be reached at aimee.f.sobhani@vanderbilt.edu.
