The first few weeks of classes are filled with the traditional frenzy of students adding and dropping classes as they strive to find their perfect schedule.
Even though UNC offers an drop-add period at the start of each semester, the period does not offer all of the benefits it could, given students’ and professors’ hesitancy to fully participate.
Students fear getting behind in their coursework, while professors find changing class compositions and providing additional support for newly added students to be inconvenient.
Professors’ consideration of the drop-add period more as a time for exploration would promote students’ intellectual experimentation and sense of educational ownership.
Many schools adopt a variant of the “shopping period,” with some universities maintaining the registration process before the start of the semester and other universities registering students only after the end of the shopping period.
Given UNC’s size, it would be a logistical nightmare to relinquish our pre-registration process entirely. However, considering the first week of classes as a shopping period would offer immeasurable benefits to the students. The success of the shopping period is contingent on both professors and students mutually buying in to it.
For underclassmen, a shopping period would enable them to get a feel for their preferences before they decide on their major. For upperclassmen, it would give them a keener awareness of the variety of upper-level classes within their major.
Reading a course’s description in the course catalog is a markedly different experience than sitting in the class, listening to the professor and gaining a true grasp of the expectations of the class.
