Students share opinions on scheduling
Penn State Behrend is known for its diversification of classes and majors, but what often goes unnoticed is the difficulty of scheduling such courses.
While students feel that enough courses are offered for their majors, many think that more in depth classes should be offered.
Carolyn Tome, junior Communications major, would like to see more video production classes offered in the department. Although she is satisfied with the amount of electives currently being offered, she stated, “I am always up for more.”
Likewise, Susan McGlynn, junior Communications major feels that her major offers a diverse amount of classes. She shared, “Specifically I am interested in the focus on women’s studies/gender studies. I feel that the elective choices should be expanded possibly ot allow a focus more on the liberal arts side of degrees.”
On the other hand, Jacob Scott, sophomore Computer Science major feels that his program should engage more in the mobile world.
He confessed, “I would like to see more classes centered around mobile app development since it is so in demand right now.” He feels that his major offers a great deal of electives for everyone, and went on to say, “My major allows me to take classes from supporting and related areas which includes all kinds of stuff. For example, I’ll be in a Geography course next semester.”
Aside from class offerings, with the introduction of LionPath, students and faculty have been given a multitude of problems. Many of these problems have come alongside scheduling.
McGlynn weighed in by saying that she only has issues with scheduling when procrastination is involved on her end. She continued, “Given that math is not my strong point, I would possibly like to see more availability of lower level classes during the day instead of only evening.”
On the other hand, Scott has had many conflicts with trying to schedule in the past.
He shared, “One issue I commonly run into is conflicting times with classes that have one section. This is especially troublesome with required courses, because it essentially forces you into finding a way to fit around it, which limits choices.”
He hopes to see more sections available at varying times in order to make scheduling flexibility easier. He thinks that this would be best handled within his major by hiring more computer science and software engineering faculty.
While Tome hasn’t had any direct problems with scheduling, she does wish to see more flexibility with courses.
She stated, “Personally I think the number of sections we have fits the amount of people in our major. But for some of the classes that everyone needs to take to graduate, like CAS 202 (Communication Theory), it might help to offer additional sections for people so they don’t overlap with other necessary classes.”
Despite many of these issues, scheduling is likely something that will remain a problem as every student deals with it in their own ways through semesters of experience.