SDSU Crisis in Registration overview

 I spoke with two individuals who offer contrasting perspectives during my interviews about the registration crisis based on their unique educational journeys. Both are connected to the problem in different ways providing a bridge between current chaos and systemic issues. One interviewee is a current freshman at SDSU placing them directly in the line of fire. They are currently dealing with class registration issues in real-time which heavily influenced their tone. Because they are going through it right now their answers were more emotional and detailed. This student explained that waitlists are so long that it feels like their entire life is on hold. The anxiety of not knowing if they will even be able to get all the classes they need.

The other person already graduated so they are speaking from past experience. Their answers were more calm and less intense reflecting the distance time provides. Since they went to community college first they did not struggle as much with registration during their early years. This likely affected how they viewed the problem as they had a smoother path before entering the university system making the contrast sharp. They saw the university registration system as a hurdle but not necessarily an impossible wall because they had already completed many core requirements elsewhere.

What stood out to me most was how stressful registration is. My friend said it was worse than finals which really surprised me. We often think of exams as the peak of student anxiety but the bureaucratic hurdle of simply getting into a seat seems to carry a heavier weight. I learned that students sometimes have to switch majors just to get the classes they need. This is a big deal because it changes a student's entire career path based on scheduling availability rather than passion or skill which to me is so unfair. I also learned that overcrowding has been an issue for a while but it seems like it has gotten worse over time.

This is a picure of the student to staff ratio at SDSU to represnt how dratic it is i just thought it was relevent tho it wasnt spoken much on 

These responses help show different sides of the problem by layering personal urgency over historical consistency. The freshman explains how bad the situation is right now while the graduate shows that this has been an issue for years. Together they help show that the problem is not new but it is certainly getting worse as the student body grows and the number of available course sections stays the same. While these interviews were eye-opening my understanding is not yet complete. Since I still need views from different perspectives like STEM majors and Buisness to see a bigger contrast depending on the seriousness of most of their classes.

Blog 5

 Interview Planning

College is supposed to be about learning but at SDSU it feels more like a survival game. The biggest problem right now is the nightmare of signing up for classes. This isn't just a small annoyance it's a huge wall stopping me from finishing my degree. The school uses a first com  first served system and if you get a late date you're out of luck. By the time I logged in, every Mechanical Engineering class I needed was full.

WHY!!!!!

I want to look at this like a reporter to see if the school is actually helping us. The university’s "stock story" says anyone can graduate in four years, but the "counterstory" is that students are stuck fighting for seats. To prove this, I am interviewing two people

My Older Brother: An SDSU graduate from 6-8 years ago, who can tell me if things have gotten worse since he left or if they have gotten better and if this was always a problem.

A Freshman Friend: Someone who just finished their first registration and can share the stress of starting college with a broken schedule.To see if they are able to stay on track with their classes or not.

Which in all is basically a Comparison from past and present.

Plan:)

I will do these interviews at my house or on a call because it will be on people i am comfortable with. Each interview will be about 20 to 30 minutes long, realistically shorter, as my patience sucks. I want to make sure I have enough time to hear their full stories. I will use an app on my phone or just record what they say so I do not forget any important parts, and to show proof of assignment. I will also have a notebook to write down things like if they look frustrated or sad when they talk about their classes. I will explain to them that my goal is to find out why the school is not opening enough classes. I will show them some of the research I found about the hiring freeze at SDSU. This helps them see that the problem is not just "bad luck" but a choice the school is making with its money. Basically, allowing them to see the truth.

Inforamtion

Research from the AAUP shows schools nationwide are struggling to hire teachers, and the Daily Aztec has reported on students being squeezed out of required seats. According to the Lumina Foundation, these "structural barriers" make finishing a degree nearly impossible for many. A new report from the Campaign for College Opportunity even shows that delayed graduation costs students thousands in lost lifetime earnings.

Main Questions

How many times did you change your plan because a class was full/ Change majors

• Did this feel like the school broke its promise to you? Did it make you think that the school is not worth going to

What do you think about the school building new facilities while freezing teacher hires?

• Do you really feel like a student at SDSU or just a customer paying to be taught?

How does registration stress compare to exam stress?

• Does the "Hunger Games" vibe make it harder to focus on school? If you don't get the classes you need, what can you do

Was it easier to get core classes in the past? like pre register for freshmen year / back in the day

• Is the value of the degree dropping because it takes so long to get

What would you tell the budget department about this struggle?

• Do you think they care more about the budget or our degrees

STUFF that may come up

My brother might forget details because he graduated 8 years ago, and my friend might think it’s just bad luck. I’ll use CSU Budget Reports to keep the conversation focused on facts rather than just venting. I want to show that this crisis is a systemic choice not an accident. Because most students are putting blame on themselves as college brings alot of mental issues out fo people

Blog 4

 The "stock story" we are sold as San Diego State students is a clean four-year trajectory toward a degree. It’s a narrative of efficiency: you show up you follow your mind map and you graduate on time. This story is reinforced by university brochures and administrative rhetoric that frames a bachelor's degree as a standardized accessible product. However this official version of reality is fundamentally incomplete because it assumes the "road" to graduation is actually paved. In reality the path is full of gatekeepers and missing sections. When required classes are only offered once a year—or fill up within seconds of a registration window opening—the four-year plan stops being a roadmap and starts being a lottery.

The fallacy of the four-year graduation myth lies in its ignoring of structural barriers. The administration often uses the language of "fiscal necessity" to justify hiring freezes or limited course sections framing these as unavoidable economic realities. This is clearly seen in reports regarding SDSU Budget where "budget shortfalls" are used to justify a lack of faculty. But to a student with a late registration date this "necessity" feels like a broken promise. There is a massive disconnect between the university’s high enrollment numbers and its actual capacity to house those students in the classrooms they need. When you have too many students and not enough professors or physical rooms the four-year stock story isn't just a goal; for many it becomes a mathematical impossibility.

This is where the counterstory emerges. While the stock story focuses on the "ideal" student the counterstory is told by the thousands of us who are stuck in the registration "Hunger Games." This perspective is defined by the frustration of staring at a screen of red "closed" icons and realizing your graduation date just slipped by another six months. To the university an unfilled schedule is a line item on a CSU budget report. To the student it’s an extra $3000 in tuition another semester of San Diego rent and a delay in starting a career. The counterstory reveals that the "stability" the university claims to protect is often funded by the extra semesters students are forced to pay for because they couldn't get the classes they needed.

Ultimately we need to stop viewing these registration struggles as individual bad luck and start seeing them as a systemic design. When the Daily Aztec reports on students being squeezed out of required seats it highlights a gap that no amount of administrative jargon can fill. The "missing" voices—the first-gen students balancing jobs with waitlists and the super-seniors paying for a fifth year they didn't ask for—are the evidence that the current system is failing its primary mission. If SDSU wants to uphold its promise of student success it must stop treating our education as a line item to be trimmed and start treating it as a debt it owes to those of us in the trenches. The "Hunger Games" should be a movie we watch for entertainment not a reality we have to survive just to get a diploma.

Work combined by past assignments and in class assignments as it connected to what i was already talking about.