At the UA …
It’s time to register for classes again
This weekend, seniors, graduate, medicine, pharmacy and post-baccalaureate education certification students were the second group of people eligible to register for spring 2010 courses, after athletes. For returning students, it was the typical registration experience of staring at the computer and waiting for the WebReg page to load.
WebReg was surprisingly slow-moving on Sunday around 7 a.m., when an “”unexpected downtime”” message appeared on the screen, preventing students from registering for classes at their scheduled 7 a.m. time slot. We live in a day and age where it’s absurd that technology, such as an online class registration process, should just shut down, especially when the people in charge expect heavy traffic at that particular time. The UA has only just begun registering students for next semester’s classes and WebReg is already malfunctioning to a ridiculous degree.
In spite of this, we hope everyone in the first round got the classes they need, particularly seniors who are graduating in May. If not, course availability is bound to open up soon, and students still have the option of being pests and showing up to the classes anyway. There’s no harm in begging the instructor to sign an add/drop form or being assertive.
To everyone else who was ineligible, unable or too forgetful to register for classes this weekend, be prepared for the following priority registration time slot. If you’re unfortunate enough to have a 7 a.m. registration time, set an alarm to wake you up at 6:50, and be patient with the slow-moving server. As always, glance over your SAPR before deciding which classes to take, and check to see if you’ll need to meet with an advisor before getting into any classes that may be competitive.
When it comes to planning next semester’s class schedule, it’s important to stay on top of priority registration dates and times. Don’t let a crazy night out prevent you from waking up on time for class registration the following morning, and make sure you have some idea of what you want to enroll in before beginning the tedious process of battling WebReg.
Making time for mom and dad
Family Weekend 2009 took place from Thursday to Sunday, and visiting families had a broad range of things to do on campus.
Families were welcome to attend UA classes, take campus tours from the Arizona Ambassadors, participate in Bear Down Friday festivities and experience the Gallagher Theater Double Feature event, among many other things. There were, of course, registration fees included in most Family Weekend activities, but who can put a price on spending time with family, especially since family visits are harder to plan as everyone gets older and busier?
According to a Friday Daily Wildcat report, Family Weekend went green for this first time in UA campus history. “”We sent out e-mails instead of the usual postcards to tell families about the Family Weekend,”” ASUA Family Weekend Director Lauren Carter said.
We hope UA parents enjoyed being part of the going green effort, and we hope that Family Weekend gave students and parents the opportunity to really re-connect and catch up. Stress affects both students and parents alike, and Family Weekend is a good time for families to slow down and remember that they still have each other regardless of how crazy their lives seem.
Besides, the UA football team beat Stanford in the fourth quarter of an intensely close match this past Saturday, and it’s always fun to experience this kind of victory when family is around.
Cheers to the parents who came to see their students. To everyone who had visiting parents or siblings this weekend, be appreciative that your family made the trip to the UA campus this year, even if it may have strained your social life for one weekend.
In other places…
This isn’t Jon and Kate plus eight.
After witnessing the success of Jon and Kate Gosselin’s reality television show about raising eight children, it’s no surprise that some parents would use their own children to get on TV.
The parents who recently set off worldwide news chaos by reporting that their 6-year-old son likely floated away in a flying saucer-like helium balloon created the stunt to market themselves for a television show, Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden said on Sunday. The parents also appear to have been extremely uncreative, since it looks like they stole the plot of “”Up,”” one of the top family movies of the summer.
The boy did not, in fact, get carried off in a balloon, and he was reported to have been hiding in the family’s attic during the five-hour search for him.
Alderden said the parents “”put on a very good show for us, and we bought it.””
What could be more tragic than a little boy accidentally floating away from home in a balloon? How could anyone lie about this just for some television time? There’s no positive entertainment value in learning of a missing child.
Parents shouldn’t use their kids for publicity, and the Wildcat hopes this weekend’s discovery of the tasteless stunt will convince other delusional parents that lying about a missing child is an insult to parents who have actually had their kids disappear.
— Editorials are determined by the opinions board. They include Alex Dalenberg, Justyn Dillingham, Laura Donovan, Daniel Greenberg, Heather Price-Wright, Daniel Sotelo and Anna Swenson.
