In the past few weeks, everyone has been asking the same question: “How did registration go for you?”
For some, the answer is positive. But for many, the question leads to a monologue of disaster and stress. Even the most diligent planners could not be sure that they would get the classes and attributes they needed. Classes filled up, plans fell apart and panic ensued. Students and faculty alike seem to have come to a conclusion: Workday is the problem.
The whole process of registration certainly has its issues. It is rare to hear someone say that they got all the classes they wanted on the first try, which is not ideal. Furthermore, registering for classes is like trying to get concert tickets; if you aren’t online at exactly 7 a.m., the odds of getting the classes you want are almost zero. If the internet in your location is not working properly, you’re out of luck. This makes registration quite an anxiety-inducing process.
Nevertheless, I don’t believe this is specifically a Fairfield or Workday issue. It’s just a fact of college that there are a lot of students, and trying to accommodate every single one of them is a nearly impossible feat. Everybody wants the same thing, but not everybody can have it. Everyone wants the Social Justice with a Focus on Race credit, the professor with a five-star rating or the class that ends early on Fridays. Not everyone is going to be able to avoid 8 a.m. classes or turbos, and there are worse things. The real problem is when students cannot get the attributes or credits they need, especially seniors. I’ve heard about several instances where seniors misunderstand the requirements for their course of study, either taking a class they don’t need or omitting one that they do. When the possibility of graduating on time is threatened, it is unsurprising that some students begin to panic.
It’s hard to say exactly whether this problem is due to students’ own oversight or to the Workday system, but there definitely are some difficulties understanding what credits are fulfilled on the Workday site. To check what credits a student has completed, they must look at their “Academic Progress,” where they may have to navigate through multiple pages of lists of requirements. Additionally, some of these requirements are abbreviated, with no explanation of what they stand for. For example, the English department asks that students take at least two classes that focus on literature from before the 1800s. On Workday, this requirement shows up simply as “E_BF Course Tag.” Because I remember Degree Evaluation, I know what this tag is referring to, but for a first-year who has perhaps just declared a major and is still trying to figure out what they need, this could make picking classes much more complicated.
Not only is the Workday interface slightly confusing, but there have also been several technical difficulties within the site that make understanding requirements even harder. Some classes appear to fulfill requirements that they do not, while others do not appear to fulfill requirements that they should. Honors students have been struggling with the fact that their honors classes appear to be fulfilling multiple parts of the Magis Core at once, even though honors classes are only permitted to count for one requirement each.
Despite all these problems, I don’t think that Workday is entirely bad. With any new platform or system, there is bound to be an adjustment period. Everyone hates it – until they don’t anymore. They get used to it. I anticipate that the same thing will happen with Workday. The kinks will get worked out, the process will start to make more sense the more often we go through it and in the end, Workday will be the more streamlined and straightforward platform that prompted the switch from Degree Evaluation in the first place.
