Illinibucks options

As a new student to the UIUC I’m not really familiar with the things that are allocated to students on a first come first serve basis or on priority basis. However, I can still think about some things on campus where students could use Illinibucks, which would move the student to the head of the line. This would be registering for classes, dorm housing allocation and making an appointment in McKinley.

I believe that Illinibucks would be most used for registering for classes if it would be introduced, mainly because certain classes are really high demanded. I got accepted to the university after the registering for the fall semester was opened, so when I had the chance to register for classes a lot of them were already full. If I could use Illinibucks I would spend them on the registering of classes, so that I could register for another course that I wanted to follow. Luckily ECON490 has a lot of options and that’s why I’m registered for four ECON490 classes. If this wasn’t the case, I would not even be able to register for four 400-level Economics courses, because they were all full. 
            To continue on the part of registering for classes in this University, I’m going a little bit off topics, because I want to give my opinion on the course structure of UIUC which we discussed in the class last Thursday. Back in Amsterdam the university uses an 8- and 4-week structure. In an academic year we are following eight 8-week courses and two 4-week courses. Instead of following five courses at the same time in one semester, the students follow the first 8 weeks two courses, followed by again two courses in 8 weeks and finished by a 4-week course. Even after one month of classes, I already believe that the structure back in Amsterdam is much and much better than the structure of five courses at the same time in one semester. I believe that students learn a lot more and better in 8-week courses, because the courses are more focused, more intensive and they go in depth. Furthermore I believe that this structure would also solve the problems with registering for classes. Courses can be better allocated to certain weeks and they would be better in expecting demand for the courses.

With that said, I would like to go back to the Illinibucks case and explain why I think Illinibucks would be used in the housing allocation. As a student I could give my top 5 dorms that I wanted to live in on campus. I got placed in the dorm, which I had as my first choice, but a lot of my international friends didn’t. Students would use Illinibucks to secure their spot at their favorite dorm. I would spend my Illinibucks on this one too, because as a new student to the university, your room allocation is very important in order to meet new people and to have a great time at university. I mainly choose Sherman Hall as my favorite, because of the location and the fact that there are a lot of exchange students living here. If I would be living in PAR/FAR for example, I would feel far away from the lively life around Green Street.

The last thing where I could see Illinibucks being used is at McKinley Health Center. During busy weeks, students who want to make appointments have to wait a couple of days because they are fully occupied. I believe that some students would use their Illinibucks to set their appointment as early as possible. Especially during exam weeks, students are often stressed and some of them do everything to not get flu, thus spending Illinibucks at McKinley would be a good option for them. I think it would be a bad idea to introduce Illinibucks here, because students with serious injuries should be helped first.


The determination of the allocation of the Illinibucks would be hard for the university. How many Illinibucks would they give to each student? And even more important, how much Illinibucks would one preferred course costs or the guarantee to stay in your first choice dorm? If the administered price is too low, students would spend their Illinibucks on everything and they would spread them over a lot of different things. And the other way around, if the price were too high, students would spend their Illinibucks only on a specific thing, such as housing. I believe that the pre-specified price should be connected with the amount of Illinibucks that students receive. Furthermore, to move ahead in the line for some courses or dorms, the prices should differ.

Comments

  1. Professor ArvanOctober 7, 2017 at 2:39 PM

    As an exchange student, your perspective is really different. I hadn't heard about being closed out of upper level Econ classes, except from one other student. I guess there are more majors now than there used to be and the supply of courses hasn't changed that much.

    You also talked about capacity constraints at McKinley. No other student has written about that so far. This is particularly troublesome to me, regarding if a student is seriously ill and can't get medical attention. So I wonder if you could clarify whether your symptoms matter in determining your priority or if it is entirely first come fist serve.

    If you take a look at the graphic I posted on the class site, the number of students on campus has been on the upswing for some time. I wonder if McKinley has been growing in response to that. I really don't know. We did have an epidemic of Bird flu on campus back in 2009. Many of my students then got very sick. The campus actually told instructors to accommodate them in terms of deadlines for papers and having make up exams. I don't think we've had anything as severe since but, of course, there usually is some bug going around this time of year. So I wonder how that is dealt with.

    I'm guessing there are comparatively few exchange students on campus. But there are many transfer students and I suspect some fraction of them live in the dorms. I wonder if they have locational preferences such as the one you expressed - wanting to be close to Green Street. At my age, I'd prefer to be as far away from there as possible, but I was an undergrad once upon a time. We had more of our social life then where we lived. We'd go into downtown Ithaca once in a while to listen to live music but otherwise there was no advantage living close to the downtown. I wonder if things are just different that way now.

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    1. John Hicks Econ 490 fall 2017October 9, 2017 at 6:25 PM

      As an exchange student I'm restricted to take courses which don't overlap with courses that I've already had in my first two years as a Economics student. Many of the 400-level courses do, and the ones that didn't - Health Economics for example - were already filled. Besides, I couldn't choose business courses too because it is not part of LAS. So luckily UIUC offers topics of Economics, otherwise I had to choose another university.

      I'm sure that McKinley gives priority to very sick students, however if there is kind of a flu going on and everyone want to see a doctor, I can imagine that it gets very busy and that you can't get an appointment straight away.

      During introduction I was told that there were around the 450 exchange students coming to the UIUC, with many coming from Europe. The most international students who are from Asia are studying here for the entire 4 years. If I would spend more than one semester at the university, I would for sure rather live in an apartment with friends similar to how I live in Amsterdam. Currently I'm living in Sherman Hall which isn't a undergad hall and many exchange students live here, so I'm really happy with my spot. I believe that most of the people move to apartments/greek houses after freshman year.

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  2. Glenn Hubbard Econ 490 fall 2017October 9, 2017 at 3:51 PM

    I empathize with your struggles in registering for 400-level ECON courses. Even as a student who was here at the start of registration, and who has a fairly early registration priority, I always find it difficult to get into exactly the ECON 400 courses I would like to. It seems like they all have smaller capacity restrictions and they fill up quickly. I also think that students will sign up for several 400-level courses, and will wait to determine in the first few weeks of classes which ones they will actually follow through on taking. This is frustrating because it hurts other students who would really like to take a certain course. I'll admit that ECON 490 - The Economics of Organizations wasn't my first choice in courses I wanted to take this semester. However, I am glad that it worked out this way because this course is more interesting than some others probably would be.

    It's interesting that you are used to a much different structure of school schedules. This reminds me of when I was in high school, during my first 2 years, we were under a system called "block schedule." Under this schedule, we took 4 classes each semester and each class period throughout a day was a little over an hour and a half. This is similar to the current system used at most Universities, but was unique for high school. I thought it was great preparation for the college system and made the homework load much lighter. But, administrators felt the system was hurting students because you could conceivably not take a math class for over a year (imagine taking one during the fall semester one year, and then not again until spring semester the following year). This, they felt, would cause students to not retain math skills over time and perform worse on standardized tests. Thus, the school switched to a more traditional 8 course per semester schedule, where each course was only about 45 minutes. This made teachers struggle to convey as much information in each class period and, in my opinion, was a much worse system and wasted more time.

    I would definitely like to try taking college courses like you did in Amsterdam.

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    Replies
    1. John Hicks Econ 490 fall 2017October 9, 2017 at 6:42 PM

      I agree with you about the fact that students register for more classes and than drop one or more. I have no clue why UIUC allows students to drop their classes until 22 October. I find it really strange and not efficient at all to just let everyone register for classes with a drop-out policy after the registering deadline. It is a waste of open spots which would been taken by motivated students who really wanted to do that course. Besides, I'm also really glad that I took this course because it differs from the structures in my other courses and I find it really interesting.

      In high school we followed a lot of courses during the year at the same time, while in the university in Amsterdam you focus on 2 courses in 8 weeks. Here at the UIUC I got that high school feeling back again, because I have 5 courses at the same time. I appreciate that you share your experiences, because I like to hear the experiences of Americans on certain topics. I totally agree with your opinion about the best structure system. I believe that taking 8 courses that are 45 minutes are worse than 4 courses that are 90 minutes if students want to learn the most. 8 courses that are 45 minutes are good for basic introduction courses, such as in high-school when your younger. However when we all grow up and become students I believe that offering 2 courses in 8 weeks (so 5 in 1 semester) is better than offering 5 courses in 1 semester all at the same time.

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