To Drop or not to Drop?

Hi, my name is Erin and I have a problem. It has been about seven days, 10 hours and 50 minutes since I last changed my schedule. This all started last April as a little thing when I thought I would just add one teensy weensy HPER class. Then, it seemed like a good idea to swap English literature for political science and before I knew it, I dropped economics and enrolled in painting. Six months and seventeen bursar charges later, I stand at the moment of truth: Tonight at midnight marks the end of regular self-service drop/add on Onestart.

In the scheme of things, I understand it doesn’t really make much difference if I chose sociology instead of Portuguese. Yet choosing the wrong classes could mean piling up unnecessary credits, which can mean pushing back graduation. With tuition for out-of-state students sitting at a hefty $11,952.95 per semester, choosing the wrong courses can be costly.
  
Moreover, as more students enter college with transfer credit and gen-ed requirements out of the way, there is less time to take random classes before they start taking courses toward their majors. Combine that with the growing pressure to finish a second major, and students are left with little time to explore classes that interest them.

So, in an attempt to explore interesting classes and subjects without adding semesters to my academic career, I have refined a new approach to scheduling. It involves spending the first week sitting in on the classes I have considered taking and then dropping the ones that don’t interest me.

The only problem is that changing my mind is costly. The bursar charges $8.50 for schedule adjustments made after two days past the original registration date, and there is a minimum $60 late registration fee for students who change their schedule after the last week before classes begin. 

To me, the registration fees are a small price to pay for ending up in classes that I enjoy. Yet charging students so much for changes made during the first week of classes discourages exploration. This can force students to stay in classes that aren’t best for them, and I think it speaks to a larger cultural intolerance of all things inconsistent.

Our society looks down on efforts that aren’t making progress toward a clearly outlined goal. The twenty-something who can’t settle on a career is a bum, and the politician who changes his mind is a “flip-flopper.” Whether it is refining political stances or just dropping political science, the best decisions sometimes come from living out all of the wrong options, and if we as a society stop putting so much stock in being right the first time, maybe our leaders would be more willing to admit when they were wrong.
So, today at midnight will I have a finalized schedule? Maybe and maybe not. Either way, consistency is way overrated.