At TCU,students participating in the honors program and those that play intercollegiate sports are permitted early class registration. This may not be surprising because many individuals at this university are granted class registration before others for a variety of reasons, one of the most obvious and frustrating – mainly for incoming freshmen – being credit hours. Despite this, the place in line reserved by the university for athletes and honors students is at the very front.

The argument could be made that this group deserves the most consideration for class scheduling because of their strenuous and demanding requirements, but it seems as though the university has overlooked the fact that the students in both of these programs have chosen to be participants.

It could easily be said that the majority of students that attend TCU are involved in organizations outside of school including clubs, intramurals and Greek organizations to name a few. Combine these activities with work and studying, and many members of the student body have a finite amount of time to relax.

Another flaw of the current practice is that it places the importance on those with the most credit hours, who are also likely have the most rigid class time availability for those upper division courses.

I do not attempt to make the assertion that honors and athletics do not deserve some amount of esteem and consideration for early class registration, only that the administration thoughtfully consider the system which it upholds. Are the well-intentioned actions of those in authority actually serving the whole of this university as best they could, or might some manipulation of the current conventions be in order?

Jacob Bloch is a sophomore radio-TV-film major from Southlake.