I know: it’s frustrating to be on the waitlist or in the “wrong” section. CS/IT285L is a required course for all CS and IT majors, yet due to budgeting issues at UMB*, it is only offered in 4 sections per semester and taught by only one professor.

If you are enrolled but not attending class: please drop quickly. Many students are waiting for a spot!

Here are some guidelines for those on the waitlist:

• I will not give you a permission number. Some professors can do this because they have the time and resources to grade assignments for beyond what the university has dictated to be the maximum number of students in a class. I do not.
• You may attend class. There is a chance that a student may drop the class before the add/drop deadline (see calendar or syllabus for this date). If so, Wiser will automatically admit the first-ranked waitlisted student. If you eventually get enrolled into class, you will want to have attended the first few lectures so that you don’t have lots of late/makeup work to do.
  • This is a risk: you may attend class and do homework and still not become enrolled in the class.
  • Note that Wiser has two waitlists for each section: one for CS and one for IT. Even if you are #1 on the CS waitlist, someone from the IT waitlist may get in before you, and vice versa.
• If you attend class without being enrolled at all (just waitlisted), you should see me before you leave the first 3 days so I can record your attendance. My attendance sheet displays enrolled students but not waitlisted ones.
• If you are registered in one section, but on the waitlist for another section, you should attend at the time of your registered section. Attending the waitlisted section will result in confusion for you and the students there who are forming discussion groups. Not attending your own section will multiply that confusion. There is enough confusing stuff going on without you switching your classes around with no official record of it.
• If you make it to the desired section, or drop, or make any other change in Wiser, please email me and let me know. I print rosters on the first day and do not get automatic Wiser notifications for individual student activity, so I may be calling your name for roll long after you think you’re out of the class unless you let me know. In this way I can also inform waiting students of their chances of enrollment more accurately.
• I don’t intervene in any registration issues. The registrar or your advisor may be able to help.

Essentially, your waitlist situation could play out in one of three ways:

1. You attend/do work for the first week, someone drops, and you become enrolled. Like any other enrolled student, you are not missing any notes or grades and you are off to a good start for the semester.
2. You attend/do work for the first week, no one drops, and you are not enrolled. You did the first week’s worth of work and attendance “for nothing” (of course, you probably learned something, which is nice).
3. You do not attend for the first week, someone drops, and you become enrolled. You are now enrolled like everyone else, but you are missing 2-3 classes worth of knowledge and work. Some assignments may be past their make-up deadlines, others will have late deductions, and those rules don’t change for you. Not a great start to the semester, but you ensure that any work you do is given credit.

This choice is yours to make.

*You can find plenty of stories about these issues in the news. There have been protests on campus and in Boston, but historically very few students attend. Hence, the issues continue. Here’s a rally I attended to demand more funding for UMB – notice the attendance numbers.