By Jesse Dolojan, Student Podcast Manager

For anyone who has had to drop a class at Xavier, there are two options. You either drop it in the first week of classes or have it show up on your transcript as a withdrawal deep into the semester. As a matter of fact, the deadline to drop classes was last Sunday. Think about it. That means at the time of reading this article, you just missed your chance to get out of a class.  

I have two main problems with this class drop deadline. First off, how would I know if I do not like a class only one week in? For instance, what if the class only meets once a week? Of course, we would not dedicate the entire  two hour and thirty minutes class period to reading the syllabus. One class is often not enough for a student to make a decision on a course.  

Not only that, but every class is different. Sometimes, students are released right after reviewing the syllabus. That first class would only be the syllabus, which at first glance sounds like a lot. 

But think about it this way. You have no idea if you would like the teacher, how they teach, their personality, how they handle grading and so many other factors. Yes, the syllabus is, an essential thing to review for a course, but if this is all you review for one class, it’s not enough for you to get a proper view on the class.  

Furthermore, what if I decided to switch majors, the course I needed to take for a class only met once a week and I miss this class? The only time for me to try this new class would be the next week, where I would be unable to drop it, because the class drop deadline is only for the first week of classes.  

The problem here is not with the course itself but with the deadline. Some courses are designed this way with a purpose in mind, in addition to the fact that some classes may only have certain resources available to them at a certain time. 

The easiest way to allow for students to see if they would like to try this course is to extend the class drop deadline. This would give students the freedom to try out a new course to see if the major would fit their interest while giving them the option of dropping it if they do not like it. 

The second reason would be finding a class to fill in for the dropped class. Let’s say you decide to drop a class: what if you want to fill in this empty spot with another one? Naturally, you go to course registration to look for a class. But at this point, you notice that everything is filled. There are no more options for you because each class session you may or may not be looking for is filled at the moment. You decide to wait, but you realize that you only have at most six more days to wait until any classes open up. 

Imagine if no classes open up. You may not even be able to get into your old class. You could just be waiting for nothing to open up. But if the deadline was extended, that wait time could  be increased. Students would be more willing to leave a class they don’t like because they would have more time to look, instead of having a fear of losing a class that they may not be able to rejoin. 

There are many more things I can write about as to why the class drop deadline needs to be extended. But first and foremost, it will be good for students to have more flexibility when it comes to something such as classes. After all, we did pay to take them, so at the very least, we should be given more flexibility when it comes to which ones we chose and to see if we would like to pursue these classes if we truly wanted to.