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| copyright: SHU |
We are always complaining about the sign-up system for courses. What is a better system than what we have right now? There are actually two different systems running on campuses in Taiwan—the “ante” system and the “random” system.
The ante system offers students ante, or bargain points (usually 100 points), which you allot and bet on courses you want to sign up for. The more you want to sign up for a course, the more points you bet on it. For a popular course, of course you need to “up the ante.” That is to say, if you can focus all your ante on one course—betting all the 100 points on it—that is a guarantee. Because no one else can out-bet you. The downside is that in order to secure one course, when it is really popular, you have to risk other courses you also want to take. But if you ask around and bet wisely, you can secure quite some courses you really need to take.
The other system is the “random” system—a system that randomly choose students from the sign-up ballots and decides who may take the course and who may not. It is sheer luck of the draw and it is level playing field. The downside is that numerous students end up being opted out, year after year, by the computer’s randomly selecting system and the possibility of graduating in four years seems so far away. The “fair and square” system guarantees randomness but not equally distributed opportunities. When the computer keeps “fairly” choosing others instead of you for one required course, you may fairly fail to finish college in four years.
Most colleges in Taiwan rely on the random system. They may have been doing that for a reason in addition that it is an old system that has always been around. Or, maybe fairness matters more than anything else from an administrative point of view. However, if the newly introduced ante system can better reflect students’ urge and urgency to take a required or otherwise desired course, why not give it try?
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