Yale Daily News

When Jordan Newman '08 walked into "America in the Middle East" on the first day of classes last week, he saw a familiar scene. The Rosenfeld Hall classroom was packed with students, filling desks, sitting on steps, and leaning against the wall at the back of the room.

"It felt like there were hundreds of people, pretty much totally crammed in," he said. "People are pretty excited about taking that class."

What Newman saw was just a typical scene during shopping period at Yale College. Yale's free-for-all system of course enrollment provides for a kind of manic atmosphere for the first two weeks of each semester. Classrooms overflow, walkways are full, and departmental offices buzz with students trying to talk their way into seminars. Shopping period allows for unique situations at Yale, like spring 2005's "Biology of Gender and Sexuality," which changed classrooms three times before settling at an enrollment of over 500, or this semester's "Sport, Society, and Culture," which attracted a couple hundred students before capping enrollment at the first 50 to sign up for a discussion section.

Yale is not the only school that struggles to find a balance between allowing students to explore different classes and guaranteeing them spots. Although some universities are more restrictive with beginning of term policies, almost any option leads to a similar mix of frustration and acceptance.

At Harvard, the system of course selection is similar to Yale's, with some minor differences. Shopping period at Harvard is only one week long. Students use a Web site called "My Harvard" to create a list of courses which interest them, then narrow the list to a typical course load of four credits.

Harvard sophomore Michael Codini said that while he does not object to Harvard's shopping period system, he would suggest some changes.

"I don't feel like it's very useful because I feel like lectures don't go in depth on anything," Codini said. "They just talk about the formalities of the class, which isn't really helpful in determining what classes you want to take. I don't feel like you get a good representation of the class."

Codini said he would like to see more classes skip formalities and immediately move into course material. Some classes at Harvard provide online videos of their early lectures to students who could not attend because of conflicts, which he said prevents absent students from missing out on material.

Several other Ivy League universities use a course enrollment system that requires early registration and then offers a two-week add-drop period at the beginning of the semester. Students at Princeton and Columbia universities and the University of Pennsylvania register for classes at the middle or end of the previous semester. Once the semester begins, they have the option of changing their schedules.

Aubrey Hunter, a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania, said registration for spring semester usually takes place in mid-November, which can present problems for students not ready to plan ahead.

"That time in November seems to come pretty quickly," she said. "It's really hard to think about what you're going to want to take when you're focusing on the classes you're taking."

But Hunter said that if a student does end up changing his mind, add-drop period usually provides plenty of flexibility. Since registration at Penn is done completely online, students usually spend the first couple of weeks of the semester glued to their computer screens, constantly refreshing their browsers to see if they can add new classes before they fill.

Princeton and Columbia students also said registration and add-drop period does not lead to overly constraining scheduling.

"For the most part, if you know the professor and show interest in the class, it's very easy to get it changed," Princeton sophomore Melissa Deutsch said.

Though Yale College Dean Salovey said registration and add-drop is a common system that would possibly alleviate some of the instability students find in shopping period -- especially with entrance to seminars -- he said he does not think add-drop would present a fundamental improvement over Yale's shopping period.

"I think a big difference would be a binding pre-registration system, and of course there are many disadvantages to such a system," Salovey said.

Top-ranked public schools including members of the University of California system are often forced to use binding preregistration because of the size of their student body and the complexity of their course offerings.

At the University of California, Los Angeles, students register for classes in a series of online "passes" at the end of the previous quarter. Getting exactly the schedule you want, she said, can often be difficult, UCLA sophomore Andi Coleman said.

"It does get really challenging and frustrating at times when you set up this perfect schedule, and you go to sign up for it, and there's an enrollment cap," she said. "I think that disadvantage is just part of the nature of going to a school with so many students."

Students at UCLA compensate for some inflexibility in class scheduling with "Bruin Walk," a professor-rating Web site. The student-run site is meant to help students avoid unpleasant class experiences.

"The issue with Bruin Walk compared to going to class and actually seeing how the professor is, is that a lot of times the only people who post are the people who feel strongly about something, so it's going to be the people who either hated the professor or really liked a professor," Coleman said. "It's not necessarily the most accurate view. But if a professor's really horrible you can figure that out."

Bryan Olney, a second-year at the University of California, Berkeley, which has a scheduling system similar to UCLA's, said that despite flaws, binding registration is not a heavy burden.

"I'd say it's a feasible, realistic system for a public school like this," he said. "Obviously there are going to be some problems getting into classes because a lot of people want to take classes here, but I don't think it's unfair."

At Yale, faculty members and students alike said they have mixed feelings about shopping period. While the administration has not made a formal consideration of shopping period in recent years, Yale College Dean Peter Salovey said faculty complaints come down to two basic issues: the length of time it takes for class size to stabilize, and the disruptive mid-class entrance and exits many students make during the first couple of sessions.

Students also complain of the instability caused by shopping period during the opening days of each semester.

"Basically I've been kicked out of three seminars this semester, which I think is part of the reason it's so stressful," Newman said. "I don't know if that's the fault of shopping period or just how Yale deals with seminars and seniority."

While few students said they would like to abolish shopping period, some said they believe Yale could make changes to further benefit students. To alleviate some of the early semester stress, Salovey proposed a student-professor trade off.

"My view is that it's a two-way street," Salovey said. "Students generally would like the faculty not to object to shopping period. In exchange, what students can do is if they decide to shop a course, they can stay for the entire session and not come and go in the middle. That would be a nice exchange."