Kimberly Von Randow ’28
Opinions Editor
Every year, when Holy Cross excitedly sends out the same email about how large the next class of freshmen will be, I always wonder the same question: Where are you going to put them all? I won’t even touch on the burning subject of our truly tremendous housing situation, but instead on how it seems that our class sizes have remained the same since the College’s conception despite it raking in over 800 incoming students every year now. If the school wanted to be honest, the email would just say, “We’ve admitted 10% more students this year! As a result, please enjoy the gladiator-style brawl known as Class Registration Day.”
Registration opens at 7:00 a.m., but by 6:50 I’m hunched over my laptop like a Victorian chimney sweep, constantly refreshing the page and praying that no one steals the obscure course with only 12 seats that, if I don’t enroll in, I will only graduate in the next millenium. The whole process has the same energy as Ticketmaster during an exclusive presale. At this point, I’m surprised I never saw anybody selling their seats for some cold hard cash outside of Stein.
Of course, this whole circus could be solved, theoretically. The school could, for instance, let more people into class—a revolutionary idea, I know. They could even schedule more sections of popular classes so students aren’t fighting for seats like it’s Black Friday at a Best Buy in 2015. Or maybe even work a little harder to keep great professors teaching here a bit longer to lecture such sections. Don’t get me wrong, I see that small class sizes are one of our biggest selling points and I will admit that it is nice at times. But for classes that are clearly in demand and get swept up on the first day of enrollment, it is disappointing to either see only one or two sections of the class being offered, or there are multiple sections only being taught at 8 a.m. by professors with a one star rating on Rate My Professor. It’s a lose-lose situation for us, when classes could be at least 25 to 30 people.
I’m all for a larger Crusader network, but I speak for everyone when I say that enrollment, at a liberal arts school this size, should not be so cutthroat. We want a system where getting into a class doesn’t depend on luck, timing, or superhuman refresh-button speed. With better planning—and a willingness to match enrollment ambitions with actual capacity—registration could feel less like a test of endurance. If college is supposed to prepare us for real life, then mission accomplished—I now know exactly how it feels to fight for resources in an overcrowded world.
Featured image courtesy of Eric Ferguson of iStockPhoto.com
Copy Edited by Lily Wasmund
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