Hand Cuffed Primetime Students

Hello everyone and welcome back to another edition of my blog. A reminder to all students that registration is now going on for Winter 2009. Register early in order to get the classes you want and also to allow you time to clear with financial aid and student accounts. This is a great lead in for the main topic of discussion for the blog.

As mentioned in the title I and a lot of my fellow Primetimers feel handcuffed. I personally know that Primetime is a relatively new program but it has been around long enough to not have these issues. The biggest issue I find with being a Primetime student is class schedules. When trying to do my schedule for the Winter I had a very difficult time in choosing what classes I was able to take. I am only available to take classes M-W and Fri-Sat but the selection of classes for the Winter were meager at best. Now many will say that the reason being is not a lot of students take classes during the Winter semester. That maybe true but even the class selections for the Fall and Spring were not easy either. I personally know that a lot of students do take the Winter but not the Summer.

The problem lies in the variety of classes and the location of the classes given. For example I would love to take the Network Security Class next semester but it is only given on Saturday and only in the Garret Mountain Campus. Now normally I wouldn't mind making the trek but the school shuttle that normally runs during the Weekday does not run on weekends. So there in lies another problem in that you offer Saturday classes at Garret Mountain but do not necessarily provide transportation for those students that don't drive. Next semester has very little CIS classes being given and some of us in the Network class have taken it upon ourselves to email the Dean of Computer Science to see if they could add the Networking 1 class. The other thing that may need to be looked at is how the classes for the Information Systems Management degree is done. There is no Networking classes that are mandatory for a degree that is essentially a computer degree. Information Systems Management is managing information in the workplace and that should definitely entail servers and communication between servers. I am personally taking Fundamentals of IT on my own not because it was in my degree curriculum.

This is not to say that Primetime at Berkeley is negative. The financial aid office and student accounts office are great and helpful people. That department should be expanded and have its own floor by itself in order to cater to all the Primetime students that Berkeley has. The Primetime program continues to grow and the need for more flexible and availability of classes is needed to cater to the growth of the program. The professors we have for the Primetime are real world professionals that can bring a lot of experience to the classroom. My only hope for the future of the Primetime department and program is that classes will be more available in all campuses and at multiple times.

My classes so far this semester has been nothing short of enlightening. I love my World Cultures class and I am definitely learning how to view different cultures with a new light. I have learned a lot about Networking in my Fundamentals of IT class that I know will help me when my company moves into the new building. In Marketing I am learning ways to not only promote my own personal business but also businesses of friends of mine.

Now it is time for the Rebecca and Jose corner. Both of my little ones continue to grow and mature. Rebecca alone has learned 4 new words this week Barney, food, box and shoe which brings her total to about 31 words. Jose has been fussing lately and it may be that he is either teething or going through a growth spurt. The one good thing is that when daddy gets home he is all smiles and that makes me feel good. Anyway that is all for now, I know I promised you a blog on the bookstore and you will have it next week as I have set an appointment with the guy for 5:15pm on Monday. Hope you guys have a great weekend and don't forget to register.