ILLINI-Bucks
In the case of the school giving out Illinibucks instead of
the current ranking system it has now, which is just priority-based, would be a
very confusing but also beneficial system in the long run. I believe that not
everyone should get the same amount of Illinibucks and that the amount of Illinibucks should be based
on a priority system in order to reward those who have “worked harder” in school.
Allocating the Illinibucks based on their year in school and the ratio of GPA
and how hard the courses/major you are in. In order to determine the difficulty
of the major, I would take the average GPA of people in that major for the year and
factor that into the ratio of allocating Illinibucks somehow. This system would
not be applicable for incoming freshmen and transfer students because they have
not yet developed a GPA with the University. By using this allocation system
you keep priority but even break priority down more to account for the grade
inflation amongst different majors.
What students should be able to do with the Illinibucks is to
use them to sign up for certain classes before other students. This will allow
those who have a higher amount of Illinibucks to prioritize more classes and get
into the ones that they want to take and need to take for their major. This
will also allow students in lower grades to highly prioritize a class they
really want to take or if they want to get ahead in their major, prioritize classes
a grade above their grade in their major. I would personally spend my Illinibucks
on classes that I really want to take or if I need classes to still graduate I
would prioritize those classes first and spend them on that. Also if there was a
class that was full I would use my Illinibucks to be put on the waiting list for
that class instead of waiting for spots in the class to open. This would save
me a lot of time and effort to get into a class that is already full.
Some of the problems that could possibly arise from this
system are that not all students would presence classes in their major that they
would need to graduate with first and would therefore potentially take longer
to graduate. The reason they might not
do this is that many people might not like their major as much or not like a
certain core requirement in their major and leave those classes for last. This
could cause a pile-up of major requirements for some students that would plan accordingly.
This could also allow lower classmen to enroll in courses that are typically
filled by upperclassmen if they use most of their points for that one class.
This could cause a sense of jealousy and a sense of disvalue for upperclassmen
that value those classes.
I believe that some classes should have an administered value
based on the demand for the course. The problem with that is that if the course’s
administered value is too low then there would be an influx of people who sign
up for that course and it would fill up to fast. That could cause problems for
people in that major who need to take the course. If the administered cost for
the course was too high it could deplete the value of some major’s Illnibucks
because they have to enroll in courses that have a high administered value depleting
their resources faster than other majors. Overall, implementing a system like
this could work and make choosing classes fairer but the transition could be
confusing at first and the problem would
arise on a case by case that would need to be fixed over time.
Regarding what you wrote in the first paragraph about course difficulty and how to measure that, I chuckled a bit. But for the sake of making economic argument, when students do know about course difficulty level ahead of time, do most of them opt for the harder courses or the easier courses? If it is the easier courses, then those should be the ones that are more difficult to get into. In this case your suggestion amounts to giving Illinibucks to students who have taken the harder courses in the past so they can get into the easier ones now, or so it seems to me. But that's a bit screwy, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteI am curious whether you've had difficulty in getting into certain classes in the major. I know you transferred to Economics. Are there Economics classes you wanted to take but couldn't get into? If not, do you have any direct experience with being squeezed out of a course you needed to take.
In the past, students have said that if you were doing a minor in another department then your priority for getting into classes wasn't high (you'd be competing with majors in that department) and you could get squeezed out of those classes. Several years ago I had a student who was minoring in Communications report this problem. And this year there is another student in our class who says as a double major, she is getting crowded out of statistics classes. But I wonder how big an issue it is overall.
I didn't understand your paragraph where you talked about major requirements piling up. Doesn't an advisor have to approve the course plan that a student intends to take? If so, would an advisor allow delay in taking a required course? That seems odd to me.
Thanks for your response. To answer your first set of questions I would say that most students in very technical majors opt for easier tech electives in their major and try to take courses where they know the professor is easier than the other one who teaches the course. For instance in my Physical Chemistry course I know several older students who have put off taking the course to their senior year to take it with the easier professor. That is because one professor have an average course grade of a B+ and the other have and average of C I believe. The reason they put this off is because everyone got the idea that the professor is easier so the ones that have more priority are able to get into the easier class first. Illinibucks could even the playing field is it means more for lower class-men to try and take that class, by using most if not all of their Illinibucks to get an advantage.
DeleteTo answer your second question, there were no economics classes that I wanted to get into and couldn't because I switched into Economics as a senior. When I was in chemical engineering I had problems getting into the "easier taught classes" because there were many seniors and supper seniors in our major that would put certain classes off take them with an easier professor. The department was also very poor at seeing if the students met the requirements to take certain tech electives. Some tech electives were very easy in regards to the major and hence hard to get into.
Finally, from my experience in Chemical Engineering are advisors didn't really become involved in your schedule until junior and senior year. So many students to easier classes that were not in their major to try an boost up their GPA to try and stay in the major.