“Do they have any idea how many kids go to this school?” This was the question I overheard at the computer next to me in Angell Hall on Tuesday as I sat down to prepare to CRISP. When I heard it, I had no doubt as to the content of the conversation on which I was eavesdropping.
- Paul Wong
- Northern alliance fighters look at local Red Cross workers carrying the body of a pro-Taliban fighter in a fortress near Mazar-e-Sharif, northern Afghanistan, yesterday. The first American to die in the war was killed at the fortress this week.<br><br>AP
“It”s like it”s being run by Greg,” said one of my housemates on the CRISP system, in reference to another housemate who is responsible for a DSL fiasco that has left us without Internet access for weeks.
“They should just have CRISPing take place over, like, a month ” The idea to expand the CRISPing period by a number of weeks, suggested by a friend of mine, makes sense. I am curious to hear the rationalization for the condensed and hectic CRISP week. It seems to me that if the problem has to do with a system that can”t handle the mass numbers of students trying to CRISP on a given day, ease the system”s load by decreasing the frequency of visits.
The situation is pretty pathetic. And each year the University makes a new innovation to remedy the problems involved with registration. The student whose conversation I overheard mentioned how much he missed the CRISP lady. I suppose I do too, on a strictly sentimental level. Practically, she was sort of (forgive me ladies), a bi no. Not going to say it.
Another friend of mine on Tuesday, frustrated by her inability to CRISP, said that she was always a bit turned on by the CRISP lady. As she sort of stammered and exhaled her words: “You are reh-gi-sterd for Eh gih neer ing three thirty five ” Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.
But when the University upgraded from the CRISP lady (sexy as she was), they needed to upgrade to something along the lines of HAL (that”s Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) 9000. What we ended up with isn”t even as good as K.I.T.T. (that”s the Knight Industries Two Thousand) of Knight Rider fame. The current CRISP program is as stupid as Keanu, as inefficient as the BCS (that”s Bowl Championship Series) and not nearly as good-looking as Hasselhoff.
I could complain about the money it costs for me to attend this school, and how they (whoever the omnipresent “they” is at this University) should be on top of these sorts of problems how “they” should be testing this program all year, and how it should be flawless by the time it debuts towards the end of the fall term.
And that complaint is legitimate. Students should not have to spend entire days (yes, plural) waiting in lines and staring dumbly at computer screens. A student who has prepared his or her ideal class schedule should be able to register for classes in a matter of minutes. Of course, to prepare a schedule one must have access to the tentative Winter 2002 schedules ahead of time such has not been the case this week.
I understand that back in the day kids waiting in lines and records and schedules were kept on paper and people dealt with that. But this is not back in the day. The University pretends to be on the forefront in technology in comparison with other Universities of similar size and prestige. If the gauge of that self-credit is based on academic research, grants and awards, then kudos, “U.”
But spend a little time, thought and money to make sure your undergraduate students have access to superior technology, too.
David Horn can be reached (assuming he has uninterrupted access to the University server) via e-mail at hornd@umich.edu.