COM Cross-Registration

Holly Masek CAS ’06 617-780-7623

To Whom It May Concern:

This morning, at the COM Academic Office, I experienced the most absurd procedure conceivable when attempting to cross-register for CM 311, Oral Presentation.

Cross-registration is a one-day event during which all the non-COM students vie for whatever spots COM students leave unclaimed after they register. To undeclared students such as myself, cross-registration is a final, desperate attempt to take some interesting classes and finally figure out what we want to do with our lives.

Too bad cross-registration turned out to be one of the most frustrating events of our red tape-garnished academic careers.

While registration technically began at 9am, some determined students arrived as early as 4:45am to fight for classes in which there were as few as two spots open. Unfortunately, a student’s arrival time made little difference. The entire process was fraught with disorganization and hostility. The tense time leading to 9am was simply a case of registration Darwinism. There were no defined lines. Students settled themselves on any available surface in the COM Office while they waited, filled the narrow hallways, and pushed toward their respective department offices.

At first, late arrivals politely inquired for the end of the line. But when these students realized that no one really knew where the end of the line was, they went ahead and squeezed themselves as close to their department office as they could. People who arrived twenty minutes after me mysteriously appeared twenty places ahead of me in the “line.”

And it grew worse. After registration began I discovered that our line was not moving because there were actually two lines coming from opposite directions trying to get to the same office. The Mass Communications, Advertising, and PR office sits at the corner of a square hallway. Neither line could see each other, so both obviously thought they were right. No advisor or office worker attempted to sort out the mess.

When I realized that all my efforts to arrive early had still landed me at the end of the line, I left. I knew in my heart that I would not get my class, and I feared that staying any longer might inspire some desperate act of violence on my part.

Perhaps I ought to have been more cutthroat. Perhaps by subjecting its students to such an unorganized and hostile registration experience, COM attempts to prepare them for the competitive nature of their future careers. But I prefer not to believe that.

Every Communications professor or advisor I have encountered thus has been nothing but helpful, supportive, and yes, intelligent. So WHY can’t they come up with a better system?

It truly would not be that difficult. A fellow suffering line-member suggested a shockingly simple solution: They could give us numbers when we arrive, much like the deli. Have you ever seen a sleepy mob squabbling over who got the last slices of honey baked ham? I didn’t think so. You see, they know who arrived first.

And that’s all I’m asking for. A little organization and a sense of justice in a crazy world.

And maybe a ham sandwich.