Registration: How to get (and keep) the classes you need
As a community college, Bakersfield College’s enrollment fees are dirt-cheap. At $11 per unit, students can take a 15-unit course load for slightly less than $200, which is considerably cheaper than what one would pay for a comparable load at California State University, Bakersfield.
But for some students, if they don’t have the money when they register, it can be difficult to scrounge up that money during the 10-day payment period following registration, which often results in students being dropped like a ton of bricks from the classes for which they’ve signed up.
“Students have to pay within 10 days of registration, and if they don’t pay they will be dropped for nonpayment from the classes that they registered on a particular date,” said Sue Vaughn, BC’s director of enrollment services. “That’s becoming more and more significant because as the state is limiting funding over the next year or two, classes will fill sooner and it will be harder for people to get the classes they need.”
There are no payment plans available to resident students (this is not the case for nonresident students), but they do have another option open to them. The Board of Governors’, or BOG, enrollment fee waiver is one way to take care of the enrollment fees and avoid being dropped without taking a fourth job as a graveyard-shift convenience store clerk or disguising yourself so that you can donate blood 20 times in a single day.
“If it’s difficult to pay, the BOG waiver may be the answer for people,” Vaughn said. “As long as they get that waiver taken care of, and I’d do that now if I were a student if I thought I were eligible, then it’s in place when you register and you don’t ever have to worry about being dropped.”
She also said that a large percentage of BC students qualify for the BOG waiver. All they need to do is pick up an application from the Financial Aid office, fill it out and return it, and the Financial Aid people will let them know right away if they qualify.
In spite of the availability of the BOG waiver, many students still are dropped for nonpayment.
“We get lots of sob stories,” Vaughn said. “I’ve had fathers calling, saying ‘It’s my fault. I didn’t pay.’ And what I have to say to them, whatever the reason, and many times they’re very good reasons, is ‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do.’ ”
But all is not lost. Students may re-register if the class is still open, but Vaughn said only a signed add slip can get them into a closed class.
“If the class is not open, we’re not allowed by law to put them in a closed class,” Vaughn said. “Only the instructor can sign them into a full closed class.”
Crashing classes: Save it for a last resort
Often, students may choose to wait until they can pay before registering, but by the time they do, classes that they need already may be filled. That’s when it becomes necessary to crash.
But students shouldn’t count on some slacker who doesn’t show up to the first day of class as a sure sign that they can get into a full class by crashing, because many students have the same idea, and the number of students far exceeds the number of open seats in most situations.
“My advice is only use (crashing) as a last resort,” Vaughn said. “I talk to all those students out there in those lines who try to crash, and many were successful, but I hear how many weren’t and how hard it was.”
For some classes however, crashing may be a student’s only option. Strategy is the key, and that’s when hours upon hours spent watching “Survivor” comes into play in order to outwit, outlast and outplay fellow students who are also seeking one of those coveted open seats as if it was the $1 million prize.
“I usually try and contact the teacher before the class even starts and get on a waiting list beforehand, because if you just go in there and try to get on the waiting list, that really doesn’t do any good,” said Valerie Gunnels, 19, a psychology major.
Student Lisa Harris, 20, has a similar plan.
“Well, a big thing to do for me is go early and talk to the teacher ahead of time so he knows or she knows that you’re one of the first ones there.”
However, some students aren’t too concerned about it.
“Just show up and hope you get in, I guess,” said fire technology major Greg Clason, 18.
Even though she doesn’t recommend crashing as anything but a last-ditch effort, Vaughn said that if students really need a class, they shouldn’t give up.
“When you register, if the class you want is closed, if you call every weekday that we’re open, try everyday, early afternoon, because we’re dropping every morning for nonpayment. And students drop themselves. It always astounds me the number of times people add and drop classes before classes start, but I don’t know how it all ever gets sorted out,” she said. “But I’ve never had a student try that everyday and look me in the eye and say, ‘Yeah, I tried it everyday and I never got in.’ They do. You just have to persist.”
Bored to insanity: Staying awake in classes
Keeping oneself from drifting into Sleepy Land while trying to stay focused on the terribly dry lecture on “our friend, the amoeba” in that Monday morning biology class is one of the toughest challenges facing many students, especially after a typical weekend spent engaging in wild and drunken debauchery.
LaughNet, a humor Web site, offers some off-the-wall (and in some instances, potentially disruptive, offensive or even illegal) suggestions to alleviate in-class boredom, including:
- Inflate a beach ball and throw it around the room.
- Take your pants off and give them to the professor.
- Start a wave.
- Run to the window, then say, “Sorry, I thought I saw the Bat signal.”
- Practice phrasing your answers in the form of a question.
- Take apart your desk.
In addition to these, BC students provided some more practical advice.
“I don’t know how I stay awake,” said radiology major Lacey Carter, 18. “I have a really boring class right now. I just try to pay attention, I guess. Get up a lot, I stand up sometimes (and stretch).”
Dominick Martin echoed Carter’s advice and added that drinking a lot of water can help, but admitted that he doesn’t really have a problem staying awake in class.
“I’m a Marine, so I stay awake in my classes,” the 21-year-old business administration major said.
– For more ways to stay awake in class from LaughNet, visit the “College Humor” section of the site at www.laughnet.net.