Adolescent History education faced registration anxiety

The weeks of registration are always stressful, bringing along the tedious task of trying to get into the right classes at the right time. However, with an influx of history majors and adolescent history education students, the seats for certain courses filled up faster than ever this semester, and many students worried that they wouldn’t be able to take the classes they needed for their major. While the issue was resolved quickly, students remain worried about the structure of their classes and the possibility of future issues registering for classes in their major.  

Matthew Leo, a junior adolescent history education major explained, “There definitely was a level of worry at first with how everything was going [in regard to registration seats being filled].” 

According to Leo, professors in the history and education departments helped students register for their classes and added more seats to accommodate all adolescent history education majors.  

“[Adolescent history professors] did a really good job of addressing this quickly. I do think that they did a good job of getting to this right away. I appreciate the supportive staff within the department like Professor [Jennifer] King. I think that it was extremely helpful to help bring some of that anxiety down, once I knew that there wasn't just going to be 25 seats [in the class], I knew we were actually going to be able to work around this problem,” Leo said.

Education professor Crystal Simmons explained that what would work three years ago for class seats was not the case this year.  

“When I first started [teaching, the number of adolescent history majors] was about 12. Now, last semester, I had 34 students. So typically there is a cap for the number of seats in a course—right now I think it is capped at 25.  But now we realize we actually have 30 plus students; you just have to make the call and say we need additional seats,” Simmons said.  

Many students felt that the lack of certainty surrounding registration could be lessened if students with a focus on adolescent education had advisors from the education department instead of the history department.  According to Simmons, the departments are coordinating their advisement to students in an effort to alleviate student’s anxieties.  

“Your advisor is always with your major. So, because history adolescent education students are technically history majors with a certification in education, your advisors are the same as history majors. I've worked with a lot of history professors where if they have a question, or if they're unsure about the progressions and the block, or have questions about courses, they will send students directly to me. So, we do have a form of communication to help students out,” Simmons said.  

According to Simmons, the possibility of assigning adolescent history education students’ advisors from the education department is plausible, but not a focus for the college at this time. 

“I'm not saying that it's completely off the table, but I think we're finding other ways to address advising concerns,” she said. “I think it boils down to issues of equity. My advising load is pretty large as it is at this point in time. So, I think it's a question of the equity and how many [new advisees] professors will get.”  

Leo explained, “I think maybe not a full-time advisor but just somebody that you're already connected with, you can meet with an education department to go over this because, I mean, there's emails that get sent out… but I just think that they could do just a better job of just making the overall structure thing clear.”

Some students believe that the increased coordination and cooperation between departments would benefit them in choosing and registering for their classes.

“I think maybe not a full-time advisor but somebody that you're already connected with that you can meet with in the education department to go over [registration questions]. I just think that that would do a better job of making the overall structure thing clear and making registration a little easier on students,” Leo said.