Twice a year, I get Hulk-angry and consider dropping out of college (again). My dog gets scared and hides under the bed. My boyfriend kills extra noobs in Halo to release the tension that infects any person I come into contact with during Scary Sara Time.It’s going to happen again tomorrow. I’ve been doing deep breathing exercises to prepare for the worst. I hope it’ll be better now that I’m a rising senior, but we’ll see.My hissy fit is always triggered by fall or spring registration. I don’t normally have such a huge problem with bad design, but the LSU registration system is so convoluted it actually upsets me.I think I got spoiled when I attended the University of Colorado at Boulder. It might not have an actual tiger on campus (or buffalo in its case), but it does at least have a user-friendly registration system.Here’s where I blow your mind: Imagine being able to tell the system to only show Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes before noon. Imagine entering ENGL 2710 into a search and all available sections popping up instead of combing through every single class in the English department.Imagine a calendar-style graphic which shows you when your classes are so you can streamline your schedule to be as efficient as possible.Imagine actually being able to register at your given registration time. Every time I log on at 5 p.m. and get the “All available registration sessions are full. Keep trying!” message, I grind another layer off my teeth. I talked with University Registrar Robert Doolos about my issues. He explained a few key features to me and even cleared up some things that had confused me in the past.Doolos did say each registration group has a full 24 hours to register before another group is able to begin scheduling, so you’ll still have the rest of the day to get your classes if you’re not able to schedule in that first hour or so after your registration begins. But that isn’t so comforting when I’m competing against other seniors for classes many of us need to graduate.That’s one of the basic problems with the way class registration currently works: The process is so complicated it creates a lot of unnecessary stress and anxiety for students.Doolos explained to me that new features in the class scheduling system have essentially been built on top of one another. While new features like waitlisting are a huge step in the right direction, they need to be better integrated into the current user interface.What I really want is a new system — one that looks prettier, is easier for students to use, simpler for staff to navigate and maintain and comes inexpensively during these uncertain budgetary times. This is a top-tier university, so why not use the resources we have to accomplish this goal and teach some people in the mean time? Get students from computer science, engineering and graphic design concentrations to program and design a registration system that actually works. It could be for a class, sequence of classes or even a competition with scholarships attached to it. It could even be a competitive project among faculty, and the group with the best final product wins their names on a patent.Maybe you’ve noticed a theme in my columns: I want solutions where everybody wins. A new registration system that makes students’ and staff’s lives easier is just that.Sara Boyd is a 22-year-old general studies junior from Baton Rouge. Follow her on Twitter @TDR_sboyd.—-Contact Sara Boyd at sboyd@lsureveille.com
Age of Delightenment: Registering for classes shouldn’t be so aggravating
October 28, 2009