In my time at USI, one thing seems to be a constant: change is inevitable. As a person who finds embracing change difficult and hard to fathom, I’ve made strides here on campus in adapting to changes.
I was forced to. I had no choice.
Since I was freshman, I had a list of required classes needed to graduate and move on with my life. If I compared that list to my current catalog, it would look as if I changed majors, but I didn’t.
USI has made changes for the better, but there is fine print with those changes, and most of the time that print is blurred. Recently, the university made changes to the core-curriculum by lowering the hours needed.
How did I find out about it you ask? A professor in one of my classes passed it along as a courtesy, but aside from him and advisors, how are you going to find out?
I would say this publication, but even important changes related to students, and the pursuit of a degree, fall through the cracks. USI is changing requirements and catalogs so quickly that it’s hard to keep up with it, along with the loads of work while students are trying to fulfill that catalog.
Although my time at USI has been a positive experience overall, there comes a time when you are ready to bust through the doors and never come back.
Safe to say, I’m getting really close to that point, if I haven’t gotten there already.
I’m close to that point because of these changes. You are expected to be aware of these changes without any hint of the changes actually happening until it hits you in the face.
I’ve had the feeling more this semester than another other time. Classes that I thought I didn’t need, I now need. I find myself scrambling onto Blackboard, hoping there is a five-week course offered so that I don’t have to deal with it in the spring.
Long story short, I lucked out and found the class at a time that works.
What happens, though, when it doesn’t go smoothly and students find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard spot?
Nothing, because after all they are at the mercy of the university. If the class isn’t offered that semester, you’re out of luck.
USI can improve on communication, there are a lot of moving parts here constantly, just look outside on campus. It all needs to be organized, and not by the students who are doing it during a pure state of panic, but by those who decided to make all of these requirement changes in the first place.
