Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

Besides the Mathematical Methods 1 class and the two Electricity and Magnetism lecture classes, I also have one Graphics One class (out of the three sections opened) and two Electricity and Magnetism laboratory classes.

Since the laboratory classes have a maximum class size of 20, unlike the lecture for which it is 30 (35 with the teacher’s permission) there is less of a likelihood that the lab class will be dissolved (or merged) than the lecture class if there are less than the maximum class size total.

I also have more of an inclination to split the students between the lab classes evenly than I do for the lecture classes, because here I would like to see the most number of students work for their grade.

What I don’t know is how many of the students in engineering failed in Miss Edna’s lab classes last term, since she said many disregarded to complete the requirements she assigned to them, despite the horror stories already propagated by those who have repeated the class.

I also don’t know with the Registrar’s office and with the other academic advisers if they will allow a student to take up the ELECMAG lecture class without its co-requisite ELMALAB because they have not yet taken the prerequisite General Mechanics lab.

I know there were at least two students from last school year that either David or the then Director of the School of Engineering allowed on that track. Not surprisingly, both of those also failed in the lecture. Thus they will have to take both simultaneously this time around.

Speaking of academic advising, again the same problems as with last term cropped up on the days of enlistment and assessment following the course card day.

First of all, a lot of students did not bring their course cards, which is supposed to be a requirement for advising after the last day of classes. So they think we will just take their word for it which subjects they passed and which ones they failed?

Too bad the online student record system still isn’t operational. It would make the job so much easier. Especially with the feature that automatically says whether a section already has the maximum number of enrollees or not, and whether certain selected subjects are in conflict in schedule or not.

Otherwise, we still have to contend with students returning minutes after their initial assessment because a section is closed, or if one or two of them have a conflict with another in their list.

The adviser’s code says that as much as possible we have to fill out a student’s classes with the maximum allowable units. So even if there are students protesting about having more than five three-unit classes, I have to give them one more, especially if they still have P.E. or lab classes which let them take up to twenty-one instead of eighteen units.

Next time I’ll talk about the other extreme, students wanting to go up to twenty-seven units, other advising quirks, the last faculty meeting for the term (or the first for the summer) among other things. For now, class dismissed.