Skyline is back in session and students on campus are struggling to skillfully maneuver through the labyrinth of construction projects balancing books, a cup of coffee, and an oversized backpack. Students sorting through their transcripts, however, face another, equally impossible maze-one of changing course numbers, requirement inconsistencies, and mixed information.
Requirements are constantly changing, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult for students to figure out where the changes are coming from, what their purposes are, and what effects they will have on their educational goals.
We at The Skyline View would like to warn the student body of the potential challenges you may face if you don’t take control of your education. Double-checking all your facts and calling campuses in which you are interested are good steps to take before scheduling classes.
For example, one confusing challenge faces students who took an English course such as ENGL 801 in spring 04. They will now have to to translate that course into ENGL 826 on whatever forms they will fill out in the future.
ENGL 801 is just one of the different courses being renamed and renumbered, and the English department is not the first to be a victim of such confusion. Multi-year students are left panicked and confused with the idea that maybe, just maybe, those three units taken from a semester long ago may not count towards anything after all.
Aside from trying to comprehend the metamorphoses that classes engage in during the educational off-season, students are left with other enigmas, such as the problem concerning Administration of Justice 104 and/or Paralegal 304, which are two classes with the same instructor, same room, and same time. One transfers to UC and CSU, while the other only transfers to CSU. Therefore, students enrolled in either class are taking the same course with two different names, which may fulfill different requirements in different institutions. Trying to sort through this puzzle alone should qualify enrolled students for an extra unit.
Transfer qualifications may differ from campus to campus, even with the same course. Sociology 110 is transferable to UC’s from CSM, but the same course is not transferable to UC from Skyline. In a system where we share parking permits but not course qualifications, such discrepancies only add to the confusion.
This confusion has risen up to such ranks as the counselors whom students turn to for advice and direction. Different counselors have been known to give the same student different advice, and it is unfair to ask that each student take the time to survey the entire counseling department of each campus to find the most accurate answers.
As helpful as they may be, counselors struggle to keep up-to-date as requirements are constantly changing, and The Skyline View, helpful as we may be, only comes out bi-weekly.