Instead of equally distributing additional sections between departments, this semester, Pierce College ignorantly added 42 sections, which include 1,000 seats, to three departments alone.
More than 100 students stood at the door of each biology class during the first week of this semester.
More than 100 students in each section hoped this would be their lucky day. They hoped that they will receive the golden ticket, the one we refer to as an add slip.
At the end of last semester, it seemed as if everyone was talking about the 42 sections that will be added in English, math and speech.
How then, we ask, is it that we once again stood around classrooms at the beginning of this semester, and hoped that our names will be pulled out of a hat?
The answer is quite simple.
The 42 sections only affect English, math and speech classes. They do not cover any other area of studies that we, as students, are required to study to transfer to a four-year-university.
Vice President of Academic affairs Anna Davies said that the increase of classes in these subjects was done due to the exceptional number of transfer students on our campus.
They want to make it easier for us to transfer to a four-year institution, or so they say.
But lets face it, we all know that we need more than just English, math and speech classes to transfer.
So we cannot complete the general education requirements fixed according to the Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC) if the only classes we have room in are English, speech and math.
The IGETC states that a student who wishes to transfer to a University of California institution or a California State University must not only pass English, speech and math courses, but also pass arts and humanities courses, a language course, and social, behavioral, physical and biological science courses.
So what if more students were able to enroll in an English 101 course this semester?
English 101 will not take us anywhere if we have not taken biology and, thus, have not completed the IGETC’s requirements.
The school should make sure to keep a balance in the amount of classes offered by each department.
That way, less people will stand around classrooms hoping for their names to be called out of hats, and more students will complete their IGETC requirements within two years.