Application decried: time to embrace reality

By: Donato Latrofa
Contributing Writer

There are certain things in life that are…well, certain: Technology is a wonderful thing; bureaucracy is not. For many of us, college graduation will be the biggest moment in our lives. For students that are unaware, let me raise an important issue: If you are a senior planning on graduating this May and you haven’t turned in your application for degree yet, you have until Feb. 15 to do so and still be allowed to walk at your graduation. As of Wednesday, Feb. 7, the faculty passed legislation saying that you may not be allowed to walk with your graduating class because of a technicality.

Reader, before you go any further let me make a quick statement: yes, policy dictates that you SHOULD have your application for degree filled out before going home for summer between junior and senior year. Yes, I should have done this last year and I readily admit I have been negligent. My question is: what good is such a formal exercise if the student: A) knows what courses he needs to take in the remaining two semesters? and/or B) Decides to change his mind between filing his application for degree in May and when classes start the following August and January? The answer, obviously, is none; the exercise is nothing but a hassle and waste of time, which is why I suggest a new alternative to the paper (both white and blue) shuffling.

As I said before, technology is wonderful. Technology allows us to communicate with millions of others around the world in mere seconds. Technology allows us to find where we need to go if we get lost by connecting us with satellites miles up in the atmosphere. If the technology for all of these mind-boggling achievements exists, why cannot the MC informational systems people find or create a program that analyzes the transcripts of rising seniors and inform them of shortcomings in their senior schedule electronically, without all of the hassle of blue-paper printing and resubmitting for improper submission? The technology and software already exists that tells us that we cannot take a particular class because of missing pre-requisites; how much more would the software have to be tweaked to give it this added feature? Such a new technology would eliminate all of the problems of rendezvousing with harried advisors and department chairs who are clearly busier with things more important than checking to make sure one took the proper courses for the major. Why do students, faculty members and officials in the Registrar’s office have to be subjected to such a poor-performing, inefficient system when the answer could be just a couple of clicks away? It is an inexcusable waste of college resources to continue relying on such a clunky system, and I call on the college administration (or anyone willing to listen) to remedy the problem for future classes.

I’m not done, however. I have one more bone to pick: the fact that one’s “walking” at the ceremony of graduation is up to any body of faculty or administrators is ludicrous. Whatever happened to making a punishment fit a crime? Would it not be a bit excessive to tell Joe Q. College that just because he didn’t adhere to the policy of paper-shuffling (both white and blue) he would miss out on the single most important day of his life thus far? For many of us, significant numbers of family members plan on showing up to the ceremony, and the thought that such a special event could be taken away by a group of faculty members gives me the chills.

As liberal arts students, we are constantly admonished to “think critically”; well, I’ve been “thinking critically” and I’ve come to this conclusion: it’s time for those responsible for these silly, outdated formalities, and also these excessive punishments to critically re-examine these useless exercises and punishments and rationally banish them accordingly.