My daughter is a sophomore at UT-Austin (she placed out of her freshman year, so this is actually only her first year there...)

So far, she has not been able to get into a single one of her required classes toward her double major of Spanish and Journalism, because of overcrowding and insufficient classes offered for the number of students enrolled. So, even though she could theoretically finish her degree in three years, she will actually have to stay an additional semester or two to try and get the classes she has missed so far.

She is very frustrated and tells me a lot of the students who do enroll in her required classes get in because of seniority, but she has discovered that for many of them, the class is not even required. So they get in because they are juniors or seniors and need to fill a slot on their schedule, while my daughter, for whom the class is required, is forced to take a class like "The Poetry of Chile" which does nothing but waste her time and my money.

Nothing against The Poetry of Chile; she enjoyed the class. But she would have enjoyed it a lot more if it had fulfilled one of her academic requirements. As she told me, "Mom, sometimes I feel like I'm enrolled in night school with all these people taking "fun" classes, but there are no goals being accomplished."

All of her friends from high school who are at UT-Austin are experiencing the same kinds of problems. I have spoken with two other parents who are similarly frustrated. The worst part is that my daughter cannot get any academic guidance. The Spanish guidance counselor quit and the position has not been refilled. Her academic counselor seems to be lost in the 60s, because his best advice to her is to "do whatever feels good." He never directly addresses or answers her questions about how come she cannot get into her required classes; all he ever tells her is: "That's just the way it is; go with it."

Well, for the amount of money we are spending to send her to UT, I should think the least they could do is openly and honestly address the concerns of students and their parents about the lack of availability of required courses. To me, this is a serious problem.

I have tried to talk to the administrators many times about this situation, but all I get is the runaround. This is a grand old school with a great tradition and history, but if they want to maintain their reputation, they must address their overcrowding problem. Either they need to cut back the number of students they admit, or they need to allocate additional resources to adequately serve the students they already have enrolled.



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