Sabrina Jendly
Staff Writer
Graham Shea / Asst Photo Editor
No more troubles trying to log in for registration at the same time as everyone else in the same class. At least, this is what the registration system has aimed to do. Registration ends Friday, but so far, it seems like the mission has been accomplished.
This year, students registered for classes in a more organized fashion. The change? Registration starts according to the amount of units completed, rather than according to a day designated for each class.
“It used to be the early bird who got the worm,” freshman seminar teacher Dr. Jon Johnston said. “This system is a little more civil and fair.”
So what do students think of this new system? According to Student Administrative Services Director Carl Flynn, “[OneStop] even had one student call simply to say that this is the best registration she’s experienced in her years at Pepperdine.”
So far students have experienced a more relaxed and laid back registration, avoiding the notorious system failures when trying to log in to PepXpress at 6 a.m. along with everyone else in their class.
“I didn’t have any trouble logging into the system and it took about two minutes to register,” junior Joyce Hernando said.
Indeed, these much appreciated changes were made to solve previous server overloads.
“Our online registration system could not handle the load placed upon it when we allowed every senior, junior, sophomore and first-year student to register all at once on their respective days,” Flynn said. “Breaking the groups down … (along with a variety of software and hardware upgrades) make it so that the groups allocated to register during any one period can all register online and come away with a good user experience.”
Additionally, with only one graduation per year, Pepperdine had to accommodate to and be more flexible for students who were ambivalent in their class status.
“(Pepperdine) is going to have to be more realistic with one graduation per year left,” Johnston said.
Yet, this new process also involves some negative aspects, along with the pros. First, the division of units means that fellow classmen do not register on an equal basis.
“The new system is faster, but for those people who register last, they won’t have as many choices for classes,” Hernando said.
Those registering with more units than fellow classmen “lose cohesion with the group they came in, but it gains in realism because they qualify,” Johnston said.
Registration problems have been almost eliminated.
“A few students still come down to OneStop and we help them, but compared to the crowds that filled the lobby last semester, these groups of students are small (10 to 15, maybe 20),” Flynn said.
Despite a power outage that affected Malibu on Monday morning, Flynn confirmed that by registration time, the system was up and running, leaving registering seniors unaffected.
One of the ‘system glitches’ has been noticed by staff at OneStop and freshman seminar faculty were in removing flags to enable freshmen students to register. Yet as Dr. Russell Gough, a freshman seminar and philosophy professor pointed out, “these are a very small price to pay for major improvements.”
Overall, the Pepperdine community seems satisfied with the efforts and success of the new registration process.
“I have nothing but praise and positive feedback regarding incremental changes that have been implemented to make the process fairer and more efficient,” Gough said.
The team at OneStop “(hopes) that online registration continues to flow smoothly, people will have a good experience, and that registering online will become the ‘new norm,’” Flynn said.
03-17-2005