Surveying in advance could solve shortage
The University of South Carolina prides itself on being the state of South Carolina’s flagship university, providing more than 30,000 students with the tools they need to succeed in college and in life.
However, recently one problem came to the surface and manifested itself during registration week. This problem presents itself every semester, yet nothing changes year after year. The problem I am referring to is the lack of available sections for certain classes.
Take, for example, Speech 140, a class most students at the university are required to take but is always completely full. For a class some 19,000 undergraduates have to take, you’d think the university could offer a few more sections. Then there is Physics 201, in which dozens of seats are open for the lecture part of the class, but no spots are left in the labs. That does not make sense considering a majority of the kids taking Physics 201 need the lecture and the lab, yet the university offers a disproportionate number of lecture seats in comparison with the number of lab seats available.
I understand USC cannot grant every student’s wish for every class, but the university does not offer nearly enough sections to satisfy the demands of our constantly growing student body. The university should do what many others are doing now and take a survey in the early part of each semester to get an indication of just how many students will be looking to take certain classes. It would be a simple solution for a recurring problem.