Regsitration Woes

On top of the stress of finals, the University of Michigan has decided that registration week should go on during all of our studying.  Now if you have never registered, you would not understand how ridiculously stressful registration can be.  It’s all about your registration date.  The earlier your date the less problems you have. 

Registration groups are determined by graduating class.  Seniors register first, then juniors, then sophomores, and finally freshman.  This is fair and makes logical sense because as you go down the line from seniors to freshman, the requirements are different, and seniors should obviously take priority.  Within each year, there are a few dates where that year registers.  Every fifteen minutes for about three days there is a group that registers.  And, logically, as more and more people register, more and more classes fill up. 

Before registration, you need to decide which classes you want to take and pick certain times so your schedule works.  Most big classes have one large lecture and then many different times for discussions.  And other classes are only offered at one specific time.  Therefore, in order to take what you want to take, you better pray that all the times work well with one another.  And if they don’t, then you have to choose which class is more important to you.  Also, if there are numerous sections of a class being taught by different professors, there will naturally be one professor, which students wish to take over another. 

In addition to taking classes for enjoyment, there are certain requirements that students need to fulfill depending on their school, program, or major.  Those applying to the Business school have to take calculus and economics.  Those in a learning community need to enroll in a class for their learning community.  Those in the Honors Program need 50% of their classes to be honors classes.  Those applying to a specific major need to enroll in specific courses.  And you get the idea. 

Now, if a particular class that you wanted or needed to take fills up, then you have to rearrange your schedule and find completely different sections of the same class or entirely new classes to enroll in.  If your lucky, the class will be offered at a different time, if your unlucky this different time will overlap with a different course you wanted to take.  Thus, creating a schedule that is correctly organized is no easy feat.  If you add into the equation your registration date, things get even more messy. 

As registration groups register in their allotted times, spaces in courses fill up and close quickly.  If your class is a requirement, chances are the course at the time that works for you with the professor you want will fill up within the first day of registration.  Meaning you have to reconfigure your entire schedule.  Planning out a schedule takes a painfully long time, but you have to do it in order to be prepared for your registration date. 

My registration date was, of course, on the last date.  As I checked my backpack on Wolverine Access, I cried a little everyday as I saw that the classes I wanted to take filled up and their waiting lists reached ridiculous lengths of well over 100 people.  Every night I had to find new courses to take and make a new schedule hoping that this time it would work out.  And every day up until December 14^th my classes would fill and I would have to make yet another new schedule. 

Part of the reason I wanted to come to the University of Michigan was that there were so many interesting classes.  But what they don’t tell you on your tours is that you might never get to take any of them.  In an idea world, the school would hire more professors to teach classes or require more sections of a class to be taught.  But lets be honest here, that will probably never happen.  So does anyone have a better idea on what to do when the class you want to take is full? 

The Final Stretch

As everyone is well aware finals are rapidly approaching.  And for those of you who were unaware of this, FINALS ARE COMING!  So, now you know. 

Upon talking to my friends from high school, we are all in or are approaching “Hell Week”.  “Hell Week” is that week before finals when all the work you thought you would have time to do later has piled up to its maximum height.  A simple mathematical equation sums up finals pretty succinctly: too much work + too little time + high expectations and demands from professors=Finals.  All those pages of reading you skipped, notes you never took nor reviewed and papers you haven’t quite started yet are all due in several days.  My graduating high school class went to a variety of different schools.  Some went to big universities and some went to small liberal arts colleges.  However, several have told me that they have this miraculous little thing called “Reading Week”.  To sum it up, these lucky students get an entire week off from class to catch up on everything and study for their finals.  How jealous are you?  There is not much I wouldn’t give for a whole week to study to pull myself together and finish all my work and exam preparation.  In these past few days, I have not seen much of the outside world.  I have been in The Grad working every spare moment I can find trying to finish every assignment and memorize every fact I possibly can before the Big Day of my exam. 

Now, I’m curious to learn why the University of Michigan has not implemented this lovely idea of a Reading Week.  I’m sure students would not mind adding another fourteen days to our schedules before each semester's finals.  It would prevent many of us from having a few panic attacks or all nighters.  Is there some unwritten rule that finals must be nauseatingly stressful?  Difficult yes, but is the stress and sleep deprivation really necessary?  So, guys, who else is in favor of an extra week?

Hot or Cold?

The temperature in which you like your room is a very personal preference.  I have friends who keep their room so cold that I need to wear my winter coat in order to be comfortable in their house.  I have friends who cannot sleep unless their room is at least mildly chilly, friends who do not understand that to most people 80 degrees is a very high room temperature, and friends who, like me, settle around a low 70s setting night and day. 

Back at home, we have an air conditioning/heat control panel on each floor and for different parts of the house.  Thus, depending on our preferences my family members and I can set the temperature to whatever we please.  Small battles will often break out because each of us have a different preference.  My father is constantly hot, my mother is perpetually cold, I go back and forth depending on the day and my extremely  environmentally conscious sister takes the Jimmy Carter approach and turns the heat down low and puts on a sweater when she is cold. 

Now, I was well aware that there would be no air conditioning in Alice Lloyd Hall and came equipped with a fan to combat those sweltering September days.  (Just so you know, this fan worked very poorly and I sat at my desk baking in the heat on many occasions.)  After making it through the warm season, I was definitely ready for winter.  I grew up in Chicago and knew what to expect of a Michigan winter.  I had also been informed that the buildings were adequately heated to prevent the students from becoming very lifelike ice sculptures. 

However, after some very cold nights, I’ve learned that the heater has an interesting sense of humor.  There is a heat control knob on the heaters in my dorm room.  Should you attempt to turn it, you will discover that this knob actually controls absolutely nothing and you will spin it in vain waiting for any form of heat to come out.  The heaters seem to be on some sort of timer or they randomly decide when they want to emit heat.  This is very frustrating when your desk is by the window, it is 2 AM, you are still up writing a paper, and there is no warmth coming from the heater.  Blankets can only do so much when cold Michigan air is slowly seeping into the room.  After many nights like this I am sick and tired of being so cold.

Has anyone else been frustrated with the unfortunate heating system, or am I overly sensitive to the temperature?  If I am not the only one, has anyone found a remedy so I can stop shivering every night at my desk?

Study Session

It’s Sunday night at 9 PM and of course I have a massive amount of work to complete before Monday. First stop during crunch time, Stucchi’s for a milkshake. Second stop, the library. I figure the Grad is going to be the best place to find a procrastination-free environment. I make the trek over with my astonishingly heavy backpack, ready for a long night of work.

I have been to the Grad before but I usually sit in the computer room where the librarian’s desk is. Since I need to get down to business, I decide that it’s time to give the ref room a try. All of my overly studious friends practically live there so I figure it must be a good working environment. I walk in and the only source of light in the massive high ceilinged room is coming from lamps over the long study tables. The huge, dark room seems to be glowing from the bottom up and it is completely packed without an open space in sight. You can literally feel the misery emanating from the overworked students. I am overcome with the urge to run away to less intimidating surroundings, so I head back out to my usual room to study where I don’t have to worry that if I cough someone will punch me.

Most of the other rooms at the Grad or at the UGLi are a little too loud. I am always up for socializing but when I am cramming and stressed a quick hello is all I can handle without breaking my focus. So where can I go if I need a quiet study place without the absurd intimidation and lack of lighting? I have yet to try the upper levels of the UGLi or the Law library. I have also heard that there are some decent lounges in the Palmer Commons and in Angell Hall. Has anyone found the perfect place and is willing to share their secret?

Key Catastrophe

Does anyone else find it incredibly annoying that the dorm bathrooms require a key and a combination to get in?! Seriously, I cannot stand it. Let me explain my hatred through a brief history lesson ...

Flashback a few weeks ago. I wake up around 10 am and my room is spinning. Like seriously, I am so nauseous I feel like my bed is on a tilt-a-whirl. After dragging myself out of bed and searching my messy dresser for my key, I realize I am going to vomit, and its going to happen SOON. As I am located towards the end of the hall, I start SPRINTING to the bathroom. Well, as I am annoyingly swiping my keycard and typing in my 4-digit passcode, my first round of puke comes up and bam, there it is on the bathroom door. Lovely. Not only am I sick to my stomach, now I have to clean up the door before any of my hallmates need to use the toilet.

Flashback two. I was sleeping in another building in my male friend's room (JUST a friend, I SWEAR). Well, its the middle of the night and I wake up and realize I REALLY have to pee. I poke my friend a few times but to no success .. he sleeps like a freakin rock. Anyway, being the genius that I am, I realize I can walk to the lobby of the dorm and pee in the public bathroom. But seriously, if the bathroom door was just a normal door, I could have just walked out of the room and peed with no trek up 3 flights of stairs and no brainstorming necessary.

Seriously, JUST LET ME USE THE BATHROOM!

-Anonymous

Flu Shots

I think it is safe to say everyone on campus is sick.  In my 500-person lecture it is nearly impossible to hear the professor because everyone is coughing, sneezing and/or blowing their nose in a fifteen second cycle.  I know my roommate probably hates me because I am up until well past four in the morning coughing and preventing her from sleeping.  And while I feel bad for all of you who have colds like me, I feel even worse for those of you who have the flu.  Universities and dorm buildings are breeding grounds for spreading illness.  Virtually every time I get sick, my friends get sick within the next two days.  I am just waiting for the day someone on my floor gets the swine because it is certain that we will all follow suit shortly after.  

In an attempt to not be one of these dreaded carries of the swine, I have tried getting a flu vaccination.  Simple idea—horribly complicated procedure.  You would think that at a school with approximately 26,200 undergraduate students and about 15,400 graduates, UHS would be equipped with an adequate supply of flu vaccinations.  However, I was shocked to receive an e-mail explaining that UHS received 400 doses of the H1N1 flu vaccination and that would be available on November 11^th.  Yes, 400 doses.  That would cover about .96% of the student body. 

So, who got to be in this lucky .96%?  Well, actually, nobody did.  If you check the University Health Services website and rummage around for the flu vaccination page, you will see a little note informing us that, “The Nov 11 clinic has been cancelled because we didn't receive vaccine”.  Interesting.  Any information stating when they will be receiving the vaccine is not provided.  To top it all off, I get an angry phone call from my parents every other day asking when I am going to be vaccinated.  So what are we all supposed to do while flu season is in its prime and our friends are getting sick left and right?  If someone has a plan please, let me know . . .