A humanities registration conundrum

It’s time again to register for classes, and once again I am faced with the depressing task of choosing a humanities class to take next quarter. I say that this is depressing, not because I dread the thought of being required to learn about arts, literature, or culture. Nor do I dread the thought of having to write papers or read novels or articles. Quite to the contrary, my humanities classes are often the ones I look forward to the most on a day-to-day basis.

Then why is choosing one for next quarter such a nightmare? It’s a combination of things all working in conjunction that do it, but I think I’ve managed to narrow the sources of this to three causes: graduation requirements, course classification, and scheduling limitations.

To graduate from Rose, all majors require a student to complete two courses in Global Studies (GL), Self and Society (SL), Values and Contemporary Issues (VA), and Rhetoric and Expression (RH). While the methodology behind how some courses are placed into these categories is somewhat cryptic (next quarter, Archaeology & Prehistory, VA399, was listed last winter as SL385), these categories work well for students studying to get a minor while still satisfying graduation requirements, as courses necessary for their minor (such as those in literature or geography) can be spread across all four categories.

However, this system has its shortfalls. For instance, to take any economics class in any category, the prerequisite is SL151, Principles of Economics. Now, this seems harmless enough, but what if the student (let’s say, me) has already taken two SL classes, neither of which was SL151? The student (I) would not be able to take any of the eight economics classes offered next quarter without first taking one more class than necessary, which would not contribute in any way to graduation requirements (except maybe as a free elective). That’s nearly 20 percent of the courses offered by the Humanities and Social Sciences Department next quarter which a hypothetical student (I) is (am) automatically ineligible to take.

As always, scheduling conflicts can occur, further narrowing course choices. Inevitably, there will be two classes that sound ridiculously awesome scheduled at the same time, forcing students to choose between the two. The blame for these, however, rests with no one. We all chose to attend a small school, as part of that decision is having a smaller faculty, and therefore, less frequent course offerings.

Another problem that I always seem to run into is that so few of the available classes catch my interest. With the exception of my affinity for political science, I’m mainly a literature person, and enjoy classes about these topics the most. Fortunately, the current course classification system allows every category to contain literature classes. However, the majority of these happen to fall into the SL group, a category that I’ve already maxed out. And, as it happens, there are no political science classes offered next quarter, because our one political science professor is on sabbatical. Why do we allow something as standard as a sabbatical to eliminate a whole series of courses?

There are a lot of interesting courses listed on the HSS department’s website, however, it seems like only a few of them are offered frequently. I think courses like Ethics in Human Communication, Philosophy of Religion, and American Arms and Strategy in the 20th Century could be very interesting and popular classes if only they were offered on a more regular basis.

I guess when it comes down to it, none of these individual factors is to blame for my frustration during class registration. Rather, it is the simultaneous alignment of all of them that plagues me. I don’t think that the current system of categorizing courses is a bad one; in fact, I think the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. However, I would like to see more of the courses listed on the website offered more often and class schedules and prerequisites set so that students pursuing any particular discipline can have a good sample of classes to choose from.