inequality in class registration system.

TOPIC: Inequality

SOURCE: Personal experience with inequality due to my age. Also recent experience with registering for classes for spring semester at HSU. 

RELATION: In the lecture power point we learned that there are many ways which social classes can be classified. "…(social classes) are also classified by gender and age, as well as by standards such as education.” (lecture power point). Also, Robbins speaks of inequality in this week's readings. 

DESCRIPTION: Social inequality exists in many forms. Recently I experienced inequality on a smaller level than most of the social inequalities we are studying in class, however i think it demonstrates how inequality is seen as natural and not questioned by those being oppressed by the inequality. 

I experienced having to be one of the last groups of people to register for spring semester classes. This is not an easy process, and when people have been filling up classes for weeks before you. Making a schedule that works for you with the units and classes you need then becomes stressful.  The way that the university grants access to register for class has to do with putting people into categories and judging them based on certain standards, for example: age and standing in education, as well as participation in sports. Due to the fact that I am a freshman student not playing a sport in college I had to wait to select my classes until all upperclassmen had registered. Before the upperclassmen, football players get first choice at classes. Why is it that we are all college students attending the same university but a student that choices to play football gets free range at the classes before everyone else?

COMMENTARY:

 I feel that this system of granting access to classes is unequal to students. Also, the categories that have been created show that  they are judging based on standards like age and grades, as well as participation in sports . Why is that older more experienced students are getting more time to register? Shouldn't each student have equal access to the classes they are paying to attend? Also, if students must register in a certain order, shouldn't that order be determined not by categories like age?