Cody Cass You’re entitled to your own
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The pace of our quarter system, widely used within the UC system
and rarely seen outside it, compromises students’ quality of
education and opportunity for personal growth.
It gives students more homework while giving them less of
everything else: less-involved professors, less free time, a
less-tightly knit campus community, and a less rewarding college
experience. The semester system is all about giving students more,
and we ought to be seeing a lot more of it in the near future.
Sure, the quarter system increases the number of classes taken
and number of units earned, but students can’t retain nearly
enough of their lessons. Condensed schedules mean that heavy duty
cram sessions dominate students’ studies for the majority of
the quarter.
Professors don’t have sufficient time to teach, illustrate
or reinforce concepts, either. The combined result is education
reduced to a reading and regurgitating program worse than high
school.
But at least until 12th grade students get some sort of
individual attention. No such luck at the university.
Instructors and students alike, knowing that they’ll only
be together for a couple of months, have very little regard for
each other. Students don’t care to learn any more than they
absolutely have to from their professors, and professors
don’t care whether their students sink or swim.
Supporters of the quarter system would say that a personal
connection between professors and students is an overrated
commodity ““ that you can still learn a course’s subject
matter without ever talking to the professor. This may be true, but
learning can be accomplished much more thoroughly and enjoyably
with a stronger student-professor connection.
Students are bound to do better if they care more about the
instructor or the class, which will translate into professors
caring more about their students. It’s hard enough to get a
letter of recommendation at UCLA because most students have
professors who haven’t ever heard of them. This anonymity
translates to the rest of the campus: as far as anyone in Murphy is
concerned, most students are more easily recognized by their ID
number than by their name.
What are students to do when they need a letter of
recommendation for graduate school or a scholarship, or a reference
for their resumé? Without involved faculty, students have
nowhere to turn.
The typical weekend for someone living on my dorm floor consists
of one night of going out and one night of doing homework. When
students are so busy they spend their Saturday nights sitting in
the study lounge trying to get a chem lab, paper or just normal
homework done, there’s a problem.
College is just as much about self-exploration and personal
growth as it is about a classroom education. The quarter
system’s larger homework loads means students have less time
to facilitate this important developmental stage. Jobs,
extracurricular activities, independent reading, scholarship
applications, campus event attendance and socialization all take
heavy cuts, just so students can complete a class a little
faster.
This lack of involvement affects the entire campus, not just the
individuals who are too busy to join the club they’ve been
dreaming of. Instead of a complex, interactive network of students
and organizations, the population is reduced to a horde of kids
held together by one thing, and one thing only: class.
Cutting back on GE requirements, as the Academic Senate has
done, would be a moot point if we converted to the semester system.
Students in the semester system take fewer units in specific
subjects, so having fewer GEs is an inevitable consequence.
Golden Bears, for example, only have to take 12 GE courses.
Bruins, on the other hand, are stuck with 17 GE courses that
dominate their first two years of instruction.
Going to the semester system would mean students spending more
time in classes that they actually want to be in. There would be
time to interact with professors, maybe even, gasp!, venture into
their office hours. More instruction time results in less homework
and a more effective approach to learning than weekly cram
sessions.
The quarter system is better-suited to a junior college, where
the primary concern is just getting a student through classes
quickly on route to a UC. The university should be the centerpiece
for the intellectual and social lives of all its students, not just
a place to pick up a degree.
A conversion of UCLA to the semester system would invariably
mean a better educated and more well-rounded student body. Any
rational opposition? Nay.