Illinibucks
When considering a way in which students could use a created currency, or Illinibucks, to secure a certain space or item that is in high demand, I wonder why this does not exist already. With the way things work now, students are kind of helpless when faced with situations like registration or long lines in the dining hall. Illinibucks could give students more control when it comes to their needs or preferences within the university.
Depending on how the university decided to allocate the Illinibucks, a reasonable student could plan accordingly to meet their specific needs during their time at the university. Of course not all students act reasonably, so they could end up losing as a result of Illinibucks. Also, I would think that allocating on a semester basis would be most practical as apposed to yearly or just once, at least for students. They could then plan for a nearer, more foreseeable future, and transfer or exchange students would not be at an advantage as they would be if it were a one time allotment.
There are certain things around campus that most students can agree are frustrating, or at least annoying to deal with that Illinbucks could alleviate. As mentioned, registration is a source of stress for many students. Student athletes get priority to accommodate their practice or game schedule. Priority is given based on seniority to ensure spaces in required courses for degree completion. James Scholars get priority, and I am not sure why. Perhaps they are assumed to be more dedicated to their studies and therefore deserving of more course options? In any case, most other students are left to scavenge the rest of the available courses. This often includes unfavorable times, locations, or even subjects. Illinibucks could be used to obtain a higher place in line depending on the extent of their needs. Perhaps, with the other conditions still in place, the Illinibucks could be used by students who are not already favored in order to gain a certain place in line among the already favored students. This would probably be priced a bit higher than other things students could use the Illinibucks for because of its level of demand.
Illinibucks could also hypothetically be used for things like cutting a line in the dining hall or bookstore, reserving a classroom or study area in the library, or even things that students usually have to pay for like textbooks, printing, or spirit wear. These things would each have to have their own conditions, like buying a registration spot would. Also, these things would have to be priced relative to the other things available for purchase with Illinibucks.
If the university were to price these things too low, each student would be able to spread their allotment of Illinibucks to gain multiple benefits, and not have to decide what they actually prefer. This would eventually cause all the problems that happened before Illinibucks to occur again, just with extra steps.
If the pricing was too high the Illinibucks would be a bit more valuable, and students would be less likely to use them on things they did not absolutely need. This would probably make the Illinibucks more effective in what they are intended for, but another problem may occur. Students may be less likely to spend their allotment and more likely to save for an emergency or their top preference. If most students have the same preference, the few exceptions would benefit the most from their allotment because they do not have to compete with many others.
For example, I believe most students value having more course options over the other things mentioned, but it could be specific to each student and their personal situation. A freshman with an undeclared major may not be so picky about the courses they are taking in the first few semesters and may be more concerned about the amount of time it takes to get their dinner. In this case, the student would value cutting the dining hall line over obtaining an earlier registration slot. Because not many others are paying to cut the line, this student would have premier access to the front of the line. The rest of the students would have to wait until the normal long line for dinner, and when paying for registration slot, they will be competing with many other students for earlier spots.
I wrote on your teammates piece a possibility that she didn't entertain and that you also haven't considered. That is, the university preregisters students. Students might declare a major and then get an entire schedule suitable for somebody with that major. I don't know why this isn't done, but doesn't something like that happen in scheduling middle school, or even high school? There may be some elective classes that wouldn't be preregistered, but the required classes would be. I would think such a system would be fairer than the current arrangement, though students would have less control about things since the university would preregister them and the courses allocated that way might be somewhat different than what the student would have chosen on her own.
ReplyDeleteThe issue of frequency of the Illinbucks allocation matters, but you didn't consider the issue of whether they can be carried over from one semester to the next or if they have to be spent in the semester in which they were issued.
I don't know much about the dining hall, but I wonder if there are certain times when they are very busy and other times where they are less crowded. It does seem to me that the campus has certain distinct time patterns - most faculty and staff who go out to lunch, to give one concrete example, do so around noon. Sometimes you'll schedule something for 11:45 to beat the crowd, or for after 1:00, to avoid the crowd after the peak has passed. But one wonders why the demand isn't more spread out over time so there is less waiting in line.
On the pricing of Illinibucks, one possible solution on how to set prices is to look at last year's prices and last year's lines and then make adjustments accordingly. That wouldn't be perfect but it might be a start. On the flip side of this, undergraduate enrollments have been increasing though the number of first year students is actually lower this year. So it may be that the enrollments have to drive the Illinibucks prices in a more complex way, to account for the changing demographics.
As someone who shares in the bi-annual registration frustration, it does seem odd the university has not at least entertained other systems for class registration. When I reflect on my transcript, I see many courses that I took out of availability rather than interest. This was especially prevalent in my freshman and sophomore years trying to fulfill general education requirements with sub-prime registration time slots.
ReplyDeleteWhen you peruse the course catalog for which gen eds to take, the options seem limitless. Filter down by which specific category you're trying to fulfill, and the choices become a bit narrower. You read the course descriptions and find two or three that seem to align with your interests, or maybe even spark a new passion. In my case, I often aimed to get the most "bang for my buck" by finding a single course that might fill credits in multiple areas. But by the time registration rolls around, these classes are completely full. The perfect schedule you carefully designed is ruined.
Now you're forced to randomly choose difference courses. In your haste to get a seat before the classes fill up, you don't take as much consideration this time around with reading through the course descriptions or looking up what former students had to say about the class. Personal interests are tossed aside in favor of achieving the proper number of credit hours and finding a class you can squeeze into your now modified schedule. Something seems highly inefficient about this system.
If we implemented an automatic scheduler, as Professor Arvan suggested, I agree that both students and faculty would be better off. Class capacities might be more evenly distributed, students could preference their top choices and then have a greater chance of getting into the courses they are sincerely interested in, and teachers would benefit from lecturing to more engaged students. Keeping our present deadlines for adding and dropping courses in places would allow students the freedom to test out courses and potentially switch their schedule slightly, but automated scheduling would take the competitive nature out of registration and remove just a bit of stress from our already stressful collegiate lives.