Solution Essay (essay # 3) Shitty First Draft: DROP DATE

Before a student enrolls in a college course the only information that is known is what one reads from the course description and what one hears from friends and other students. To fully understand the requirements of the course one must actually go to it and see. The first few weeks of a course is not enough time to fully understand what the course will be like, one needs to take at least one major test, and try one major project to get the full experience. Although the drop date for dropping classes is set to give students time to asses whether they are prepared for the course that they are enrolled in, the college administration should push the drop date back further because it would give students enough time to fully experience the requirements of the class, to test out what the class is like, and to decide if they should drop the class or not in a larger time frame.

At the University of Alaska Fairbanks the drop date to drop classes is two weeks after the beginning of the semester. A drop date is the date which you can withdrawal from a course and get a full refund back. There are also later drop dates were you get a partial refund or no refund. These two weeks do not give the students enrolled enough time to see the whole picture of what the course is like and what is required of the student to complete the course and learn the material. Since most classes only meet three to four times a week, based on the current drop date system, they only have a about 7 classes to see if they are up to taking the course and can handle the requirements.

A solution to the drop date being to early is to movie it back, and even eliminate it. One might argue that this solution would be a hassle for teachers and administrator, but student pay a lot of money for college, therefore the college should cater to their needs; not the other way around. Balancing education and ones personal life proposes a challenge; unforeseen event can take place in a student’s life that hinder their ability to complete a course and force them to withdrawal. If this is past the drop date they loose hundreds of dollars. A student should not be penalized for this; they should be able to drop classes with no financial consequence if they are in situation dictates the need for them to drop a calss. If the drop date was just simply moved back, the student body of UAF would greatly benefit because then students would not be forced to take courses they registered for that they were unknowingly not qualified to take. This would raise the average GPA at UAF and increase the graduation rate, which would intern raise the universities national standing. By moving the drop date back further and possibly eliminating it the students and the university as a whole ill benefit greatly.

An example of how a drop date that is set too soon affects a student is a student failing the course because they were not prepared to take it. Consider a student enrolls in a math class. The first two weeks are review of the pervious level of math. The student will do well during this time and decided that they are able to take the class. Then the drop date passes and new information is taught in the class. The student becomes overwhelmed by this and ends up falling behind and possibly failing the course. If the drop date had been later, the student would have had enough time to asses that they were not qualified for the course and could have switched into a lower level of math; because the drop date was set too soon they are stuck in a course that they are not qualified to take. This situation applies to all the subjects being taught at UAF.

A drop date that is set too soon can have drastic affects on student and their education process. The University needs to cater to the needs of its student and reassess its withdrawal and drop dates to fit the needs of the student body. UAF has a high failure rate and a low graduation rate, if the drop dates were properly assigned this would increase the number of student that pass classes and make it graduation.