When I was registering for my fall semester courses, I wanted to join the waitlist for a class. However, I was disappointed to learn that the course didn’t have a waitlist option. Not having waitlist options can make registration stressful for students if the courses they want to take are closed and they can’t join a waitlist. 

The different departments at UT should allow students to join waitlists for all of the courses they offer, so students do not miss out on all of the benefits of taking certain courses. 

Taking courses at the right time is crucial for students. If they can’t take required courses, they may fall short of the required 12 credit hours to receive full financial aid. Students may only be able to reach that many hours by adding courses that are unnecessary to their degree plans. Alternatively, students may fall off track in their degree plans and delay their graduation, as many degree plans are sequential. 

There should be waitlists for elective courses too, so that students can attend classes they are interested in if openings become available. 

“I feel like at least one person has dropped out of every class I’m in,” said history junior Sunidhi Jain. “Having to check (class registration) back and forth (for class openings), it’s super annoying, and just very inefficient.”

When students are unable to join waitlists for courses, they may not check if courses have reopened because they believe there is no chance of being admitted after seeing that there is no waitlist. Although there is not much students can do if courses are closed, they should still be able to join waitlists. Students shouldn’t miss out on the benefits of taking certain courses when spots could later become available. They would automatically be admitted to courses if spots open and wouldn’t have to do anything else after joining a waitlist. Registration would become less stressful for students if they could join waitlists for all of the preferred courses they were unable to register for.    

Luis Guevara, senior academic program coordinator for the Mexican American and Latina/o Studies department, shared that his department has waitlists for all required courses for degree plans, but not for elective courses. He shared some reasons waitlists do not exist for these courses. 

“Part of that is a function of not knowing if we can add more seats to a course that is an elective, and some of that is really the space in the class where we could add more students,” Guevara said. “In some cases, to be honest, it’s faculty (who) don’t want to add more students to their teaching load and responsibilities.”

After courses fill up, students might decide to drop the class. This would create space that other students could fill. In this case, there would be enough room for new students in classrooms. Professors would not have extra students to teach, as the maximum number of students they intended to teach wouldn’t change. There would be no need to add more seats to courses. 

If faculty does not want to provide students with a false sense of hope when it comes to getting admitted to a class, they can limit the number of students who are allowed to join waitlists based on how many students usually drop the course. 

Students should be able to join a waitlist for any class they wish to, as it gives them the opportunity to try to take classes that interest them or are required for their degree plans. Different departments should make this happen by providing waitlist options for all of the courses they offer. 

Kamal is an international relations and global studies and economics junior from Irving, Texas.