Illinibucks
When I arrived in Urbana-Champaign in August the
first thing I had to do is to register for my classes. The main problem for me
was that a lot of students have priorities and you need administrative
approval. This process took me three weeks, where I spoke nearly every day with
my course coordinator. If I didn’t schedule my courses I would lose my visa
status and my scholarship from my university. I was able to figure out the
problem to get my courses for my visa status but I was only able to get 4 of 6
courses. Therefore, I cannot finish my Bachelor degree this semester like I had
planned it. Moreover, I would use the “Illinibucks” to get my favorite professor.
Especially as an exchange student I could only chose from a very small list of
courses and these courses where all nearly at the same time. It was hard to get
a full schedule and make a lot of credits. Because of this problem the
productivity and the effectiveness in this semester is not that high like in
the semesters before at my home university. In total I was extremely stressed
and in this situation I would be very happy to have “Illinibucks”. This is
money you can use moving to the head of the line. In this situation I wished
something could make it possible to finish my Bachelor and I would use the
“Illinibucks”.
Furthermore, “Illinibucks” would be very good to
use in case of work deadlines. Sometimes I have a few assignments on one day and
often I also have limited time for each assignment. For example, I was working
for my econ and finance class on one day, which was very stressful because I
wanted to concentrate on both perfectly and it was hard to manage the time. When I could use the cash in this situation I
could only concentrate on one subject, which would be much easier and you could
take more time for every single subject.
Another example for using this sort of payment is
at the gym. I play badminton every week at the arc and need to make a
reservation for the court. Badminton is here very popular and people start to
call the office at 9am and after 5 minutes all courts are fully booked. That’s
the reason I go mostly playing badminton around 9:30 pm which is too late for
me but it is very hard to get a court earlier. In this case, I would also use
the “Illinibucks” to have the possibility to play badminton at my favorite
time.
Furthermore, there also could be problems with
using the “Illinibucks”. For example, when the price is too low everybody would
buy it with this cash and so there is once again first come first serve.
Whereas the price is too high people cannot afford it or only a few and the
problem could be that the whole capacity is not filled.
When the price for the Illinibucks for the
courses is too low we would have once again first come first serve because the
students would just pay the money to get their favorite course. On the other
hand, when the price is too high it would be too expensive and the people would
have no chance to attend their courses.
To sum up, I think Illinibucks would not solve
the problem in these examples I mentioned. Because they create a similar system
and it would not be easier for students. However, I think the “Illini cash”
would work with the examples with the deadlines because these are not limited
to an amount of students who request a different deadline, and it would also work when a lot of students
would use the “Illini Bucks” in this situation.
I'm sorry you had such trouble with course registration. I gather you needed specific classes to meet your degree requirements. But I want to not that timing-wise, it is a bit unusual from my point of view to do study abroad in the year you plan to graduate. Here it is more common to do it as a junior. Is there something else that explains your timing?
ReplyDeleteI do want to note that if you are having some challenges balancing assignments that are due on the same day, the issue would only be more difficult if you were taking more classes. So maybe there is some upside in not graduating this semester. Will you do the following semester here or back in Austria?
I don't know how the money flows with Study Abroad programs, but as I mentioned in class at the start of the semester, in Econ it appears that they held back seats for registration till the week before the semester began, because they wanted to accommodate new transfer students and allow them a fair chance at getting into their preferred classes. Whether the College of Business does something similar, I don't know. But If I were in your situation I'd have complained, either here or to the appropriate office back at your home university. It doesn't seem we've treated you very well that way.
Now let me switch to the badminton example. I'm afraid you've actually found the best possible solution at the ARC. If you had rich friends maybe you could find an alternative that is available off campus at a preferred time. But otherwise, there are a lot of students on campus and there are preferred hours to use the facility. I'm guessing capacity utilization is very high for those facilities and they try to be fair with the allocation, though maybe some students have figured out how to program their phones to call at just the right time. In my day - 30 years ago or so - you had to reserve things face to face. At least that has changed since.
I have chosen the last semester of my bachelor for my semester abroad because I worked the last three years in an insurance company and I had to cancel my working contract before I arrived to champaign. That is the reason it was best for me to do it at the end of the bachelor.
ReplyDeleteI am here only for four months until December and will graduate in February in Austria.
I talked to my home university because of the troubles in the course registration and they talked to the UIUC and hope that they can improve the application process for the students in the following years.