College senior Jen Jablow will be spending her last semester at Penn fulfilling her writing requirement.
And she's not thrilled about it, either.
The add-drop period for the spring semester began yesterday, and Jablow - along with many other College seniors - is seizing the opportunity to make sure that their classes fulfill general curriculum requirements in time for graduation.
College seniors need to complete both the general curriculum - think history, science and quantitative data analysis - and their major requirements in order to graduate.
Some changes in the College's advising system are currently being implemented in order to reduce the number of seniors who are scrambling to complete their worksheet before it's time to get their diploma.
Advising officials have begun e-mailing College students at the beginning of their senior year to remind them of outstanding requirements.
It is unclear, however, whether these e-mails - or academic advisers - will effectively encourage College seniors to rearrange their schedules or affect when they take specific courses.
"I wish my major adviser would have been more knowledgeable about the College requirement system," College senior Reg Tigerman said.
Meanwhile, about 1 percent of the College senior class typically does not finish either the general College curriculum or major requirements by graduation, according to College Dean Dennis DeTurck.
That usually means taking summer courses in order to receive a diploma and officially graduate.
"We do have a few students who get to the near end of senior year, and they have simply forgotten [to fulfill] . some requirement," DeTurck said.
The Registrar's Office does not give preference to seniors registering for a specific course needed to fulfill a requirement. - that decision is always up to the professor or department head.
Still, some seniors are not thrilled to be taking requirement-satisfying, low-level courses at the last minute.
Tigerman, for example, is currently taking a course in computer programming.
But the Political Science and Communication major says he's only taking the course because it fulfills a science requirement - not because he necessarily wants to.
"I've been pushing it off for four years," he said.
And administrators say they are not surprised by this approach, which they consider typical of the average student.
Students "tend to put off what they feel least comfortable with," College Dean of Freshmen Janet Tighe said.
In general, officials do not consider seniors leaving general requirements to the last minute to be a problem.
"It's not a big systematic issue," said Tighe, who is also in charge of academic advising.
Tighe noted that requirements may be neglected for a variety of reasons, ranging from a change in major to complications beyond a student's control.
Administrators also agree that, sometimes, College students are better off leaving general requirements to their senior year.
"It's not necessarily a good thing when students . get into this pattern of trying to get things out of the way as opposed to trying to use the requirement in a creative way," DeTurck noted.
Others pointed out that general-requirement courses may even help students choose their major.
Some required courses "help people explore things they're interested in," Tighe added.
