New enrollment process complicates, not simplify
This year’s enrollment process fell somewhere between a stampede of headless chickens and the way Tom Hank’s character must have felt while trapped in the airport in “The Terminal.”In one word, it was chaos.
Of course, no one can stop the usual flock of latecomers scrambling to register for classes at the last minute, creating heaps of confusion and never-ending lines, but this year was something to behold.
Students were forced to leap through hoops of fire in advisement, registration, financial aid and cashier services with help no where to be found, just to be able to attend school this semester.
As if the enrollment circus wasn’t complex enough, students were dropped from their classes by the thousands, sometimes multiple times, just days before school began.
Apparently the blue sheets informing students of their class schedule along with the amount and due date of tuition have gone out of style.
Students had to learn the hard way by discovering, without notice, that they had been dropped from their classes and that they not only had to fi gure out how to set up an online payment plan the very same day, but have the means to do it then and there. That is, if there were any classes still available.
Even registration personnel themselves did not know information vital to students registering.
The phrase, “It all depends,” was a favorite among staff this semester.
No one seemed to have a clue, and when students were given the runaround, they were told that they should have known better.
For shame.
It would be valuable to know how unsuspecting students could have had any idea how to handle the forthcoming epidemic with the new computer system, unfamiliar web site, and complete and utter lack of human proficiency ahead of time.
It seems as if artifi cial intelligence has finally taken over the world and left both staff and students clamoring desperately to understand and comply with the system.
What is this unknown force that has taken over MCC?
Does anyone have the answers or the organizational skills to put the countless frustrated and bewildered students at ease?
Let’s hope this does not become a pattern because if it does, few students will put up with taking a beating each semester just to get a seat in class.
