With the current budget cuts at NAU, many classes are no longer going to be a part of the curriculum. I don’t know about you, but I find myself on three waiting lists for classes I am required to take next semester.

I realize it is a difficult time for the university, and everyone has to deal with unfortunate changes, but this system of enrollment makes it really hard to be a student. The process of enrolling in a class includes steps such as constantly rearranging your schedule and having your name on multiple waiting lists, e-mailing the professors, and yet no guarantee of a seat in a class. It is stressful enough trying to manage your time and money, and now you don’t even know if any of your required classes are going to be available.

NAU needs to put students first when it comes to required classes. There are many students who take certain classes for entertainment instead a stepping stone toward their degree. 

Teachers and directors need to start looking at their students’ majors and seeing if some students can take the class at a different time. This way, students who need to take certain classes at that exact moment to follow their major’s plan and graduate within four years do not get stuck behind. One extra year of college is another year of paying for tuition, books and living. If the university does not allow you to take these classes because they are full, maybe they should give you your fifth year for free. After all, it only seems fair that if you are unable to get into your required classes, the university should give them to you in the future. 

When students who are freshmen and sophomores sign up for classes, they are unable to get into the ones they were originally planning on enrolling in, especially if those particular classes are upper-level sophomore/junior classes. This is an unfair system of enrollment because the lower classes cannot get into their required courses and are still paying the same amount of money. I was under the impression that the effects of the budget cuts were going to be fewer teachers and larger classes. Yet two weeks ago, when I was going to sign up for classes, three out of five of the classes I was planning on taking were full. It seems to me that we are going to have fewer teachers with the same number of students per class.

If students are unable to get into the classes they desire, then why go to a university that cannot guarantee you a seat? Maybe NAU can start denying students each year, or raise the standards for acceptance, if that will help the current students have an easier process of enrollment that does not deprive them of their classes.