tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post101927919512193151..comments2024-03-10T05:26:42.148-04:00Comments on My Biased Coin: More on the Shopping PeriodMichael Mitzenmacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738274256402616703noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-67855621682418617332008-02-08T11:19:00.000-05:002008-02-08T11:19:00.000-05:00Shopping period continues at Harvard, but so does ...Shopping period continues at Harvard, but so does the absence of any quantitatively based enrollment prediction mechanism like the one Stuart Shieber quite successfully put together using historical data (as I recall, it worked reasonably well on year 10 data about enrollments in all courses, numbers of majors, etc., having been trained on years 1-9). Fundamentally, the powers that were (some of whom were scientists, mathematicians, and economists) didn't believe it could work, even though Stuart demonstrated that it would. So it came down to a power play, motivated in part (as MM mentions) by discussions about the welfare of grad students. When the administration lost the power play, it dropped the entire subject and made no effort to institute a computational predictive mechanism instead. What generally happens in higher education when a problem is dispensed with that way is that it comes back in 3 or 4 years, after there has been a turnover in the administration and everyone has forgotten that the issue was ever considered previously. - Harry LewisAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-28478160373382533322008-02-05T16:40:00.000-05:002008-02-05T16:40:00.000-05:00I don't know how the course approval process has c...I don't know how the course approval process has changed at Harvard since back when I was an undergrad in the Stone Age, but if I had had to have my course assignments approved by my advisor before the semester and then had any changes approved again I would have felt a lot more restricted to my initial course assignments. During shopping period I went to the first and second lecture of a lot of classes to decide on my specific schedule for the semester.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-14555292016016395722008-02-05T12:20:00.000-05:002008-02-05T12:20:00.000-05:00lev, the usefulness of shopping period depends ver...lev, the usefulness of shopping period depends very much on how seriously all parties take it. So while you say Yale lets you change your course selections two into the semester (and I think most colleges are like Yale), this isn't really a "shopping period" unless the students and teachers approach it as one. At Harvard, certainly among undergraduates, shopping period is very much taken advantage of, and I think the professors work to accommodate this. For example, Michael says that he prepares special lectures. But if the professors didn't work to accommodate it, or if only a small minority of students "shopped," then actually changing classes becomes difficult because you have fallen so far behind. <BR/><BR/>In other words, there is a downside to your suggestion.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-35268783007487455912008-02-05T11:21:00.000-05:002008-02-05T11:21:00.000-05:00I was an undergraduate at Princeton, where we had ...I was an undergraduate at Princeton, where we had preregistration. However, we could switch our course selections two weeks into the semester - this made the first two weeks very much a shopping period.<BR/><BR/>Now I am a graduate student at Yale, where we have a true shopping period like Harvard. I don't see students shopping any more at Yale, but I often see overcrowded classrooms and TA headaches.<BR/><BR/>If many students have a rough idea of what they plan to take, why not have them express these preferences. This also has the added benefit of allowing faculty not to prepare courses all summer long that nobody preregistered for the semester before.Lev Reyzinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09629175455869565423noreply@blogger.com