UW is facing a budget crisis, and administrators say one of their biggest money-sucking problems is the large number of students who do not graduate in four years. At the same time, many students complain that they cannot graduate in four years. Obviously, we have a bottleneck somewhere.

Beginning last week, many students found themselves stuck in the middle of it. . .

* * *

“This class. . . is closed.”

Dammit. The website said it still has five seats open, what the hell? Oh well. Hang up, go back to the timetable.

Let’s see. You only have two semesters left and a handful of requirements left — better make sure you take care of one with this class. You go to the website; maybe you can search the timetable according to requirements for your major. Nope, guess not; you can only search for breadth, ethnic studies and basic requirements that most people cover in their first two years. You go to your major’s website for classes that cover the requirement.

OK, there are a few. Go back to the timetable.

Only two are being offered next semester. That one sounds kind of interesting; you check it out. Hmm. . . 7:45 in the morning, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You think you’ll look at the other one.

You don’t know about the topic — Quantitative Analysis of Political Data or something like that — but the time works. You make the call. . .

“This class. . . is closed.” Crap. But wait: “The following open classes are available for this course. . .”

Well, there’s one open discussion. Of course, it conflicts with one of the classes you already have. Maybe you can drop it and pick up another class that fills that requirement. OK, it’s dropped. Now to pick up that one open discussion.

“You are not eligible for this class.”

Dammit! It says sophomore standing is the only requirement; you’re a junior. What the hell? Guess you’ll re-add that class you dropped and go from there.

“This class. . . is closed.”

What? You just dropped it two minutes ago! Son of a. . .

Forget it, you’ll just sign up for the hellish 7:45 lecture and deal with your newest problem from there. Guess there won’t be any “Thirsty” Thursdays for you next semester.

You make the call and hold your breath. By this time, you’re ready to offer the automated registration lady sexual favors for a spot in this one damn class. . .

“This class. . . has been canceled.”

That *&^@^% *&^%$!!!

* * *

This nightmare may be exaggerated, but elements of it have happened to everyone at UW at some time. The touchtone lady is not really the one to blame; in fact, the touchtone system itself, minus a few glitches due more to the early (and thus largely tentative) timing of scheduling, is probably the best one can hope for in a gargantuan public university. And there is hope for students even after their worst touchtone nightmares; they can show up on the first day of a class they’re not registered for and hope the professor is sympathetic, or they can take summer school.

But we shouldn’t have to resort to these measures, and many students refuse to — this is why many do not finish in four years. If the budget crisis is truly as bad as some UW officials say it is, they need to take at least one of three steps to alleviate the problem. They should unravel and reduce the tangled mess of school-wide graduation requirements. They should improve oversight of individual departments to ensure their requirements are realistically and easily attainable within four years. And they should put more emphasis on advising and career counseling in the first two years.

If not, they are going to continue to spend more money on students in their fifth and sixth years at college, students living in dread of the four most painful words come registration time:

“This class. . . is closed.”

Matt Lynch is a junior majoring in English and political science. He still maintains hope of graduating in May 2003.