Each semester, Villanova students enter new classrooms with new professors eager to see how things play out. There’s a palpable sense of hope around the campus. Students are eager to get to their classes and see if what they signed up for meets their expectations, setting them up for a successful semester. However, sometimes students experience the opposite. They walk in, and the class or professor is completely different than what they expected. However, by the time they realize this and go online to register for a new course, it is too late. It is already the second week of classes, and the add/drop period has come and gone.

Many reading this article may be thinking: the second week of classes is only five days into the semester, so they should be able to drop the class. However, this isn’t the case at Villanova. Students are only given the first week of classes to decide whether or not they wish to add or drop any of the classes they registered the semester before. 

While some may believe that one week is more than enough time to decide, many students take classes that only meet twice a week, giving them little time to decide. In addition, the first day of a new class is notorious for spending the majority of the allotted time on going over the syllabus, class guidelines and grading policies for the semester. As a result, students essentially have one class meeting to decide whether or not the class is worth staying in if the class meets twice a week. 

While the withdrawal, or W/X, period allows a student to leave a class shortly after the midterm if they believe their current grade will have a negative impact on their GPA, they will lose the credit hours allotted to that course, as well. So, if a student is taking the minimum of 15 credit hours this semester, they would be knocked down to 12, which may set someone off-track. 

Although an extra week may give students more time to decide, many believe that it isn’t necessary. One of the most significant counters to this proposal is that if a student chose to drop a class at the end of the second week, the class they would join instead may be too far ahead in the curriculum for a student to catch up. This is particularly relevant in classes that meet three days a week because a student could miss six classes before joining if the drop-add period were extended one week. Even though that is true, a semester is generally 14 weeks of class, so if the drop-add period were extended, hopefully professors would be able to modify the curriculum slightly to accommodate students leaving and joining during the second week. 

Extending the drop-add period by one week would offer students a more reasonable window to make decisions about their schedules without significantly disrupting classroom progress. While concerns about falling behind are valid, they can be addressed through slight adjustments in course pacing and greater flexibility during the early weeks of the semester. One extra week could make a multitude of differences in helping students feel confident and comfortable with their schedules.