I’m the first one to admit that I make a few jokes about UMass Boston fairly often. Sometimes, it’s much easier to be cynical than it is to be positive. Regardless of the typical “we-have-no-housing” or “we-should-have-a-monorail” tangents, I take my education seriously and it bothers me to no end when people in my classes do not do the same. I’ve taken a few classes with enrollment limited to 16 students, although the professors typically allow at least two more students into the class. It always sucks to watch disappointed students leave on the first day of class because the professor just can’t wiggle them onto the roster. I’ve noticed, time and time again, that despite their luck in entering the class, too many students put forth lackluster effort where another student who didn’t make the class would have excelled. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying those students aren’t capable. It’s that their lack of caring in their work, and sometimes their lack of attendance, is more evident than they think. While I can never fully know the student’s situation, I think that all of us–myself included–often take on more than we can handle and, at some point, something needs to be removed. I learned this lesson the hard way, which is why there are a couple of withdrawals on my transcript. Particularly when it comes to classes with limited enrollment, I think that some need to step back, take a look at their limits and determine whether or not these classes are the best fit. It’s always a shame when someone withdraws from the class earlier in the semester and you know someone who desperately wanted to fill that spot. I think that the collective student body needs to be more considerate of the other students vying for a position in the class and bow out before the end of add/drop if they question their ability to complete the class. Perhaps this comes from the oft-chided American working spirit, where one is encouraged to handle as much as their neighbor can handle, not how much they can handle. Perhaps I’m just hyper-sensitive to the issue because I know people who have been scorned by a full class, only to hear later that two people withdrew and how upset they were mulling over the “If I were in that class” statements. I don’t know now, and probably never will. Back to your regularly scheduled “Our-campus-was-designed-like-a-prison” jokes.