Lucky Student

Getting added to classes that you are petitioning for is purely a matter of luck. During my time at  University of California, Irvine, the system for adding classes involved wait-listing myself online and hoping that others would drop so I could get in (It also helped if I was at number 5 rather than number 55 on the wait-list). However, for ‘classes-in-demand’, due to an easy professor or because it was a pre-requisite for Upper Division classes, the chance of getting in were almost 0 (at least with my kind of luck).

In Golden West College and possibly other community colleges, the system for adding is a little different. The teacher decides how he/she wants to add petitioners to the class. I’ve had an English Professor who had the students write their names on a piece of paper and then he did a draw, where he pulled out as many names as seats available (due to the absence of registered students).

Yesterday, I wanted to petition an Anatomy course at the same community college. I got to the 8am class at 8:20am. A huge line was neatly formed from one corner of the room to the other. At the beginning of the line stood the Professor with a Halloween ‘Trick or Treat’ bucket. Students were pulling out something from this bucket, and then moving along.

I asked a girl about this unusual scene and she told me that the bucket had little cards with either a smiley face or a sad face on each. Whoever got the smiley face could grab a chair and stay for the class, while the ‘sad face’ people had to leave. The ‘smiley face’ individuals would be given add-cards that they could use to add the class online. 

Considering my luck, I decided that I would probably not get the seat. Nonetheless, as always, I still had to try. I was the last person in line.

When I got to the ‘Sorting Bucket’, I pulled out a card that would determine my fate.


And guess what? 


I got in the class!!

My first quiz is tomorrow and my first exam is on Thursday, so I should probably be studying right now.