I feel that the uniquely interview-centered registration process at Sarah Lawrence is not—or perhaps no longer—what it is supposed to be. Already this year, I have participated in four rounds of interviewing: fall registration, fall alternate, spring registration, and spring alternate. I am by no means complaining about being bumped: I realize that we have a small course catalogue and a small degree of variation in student interest, which my humanities-intensive curriculum renders that much smaller. But the interviews that I’ve done this year, which probably total about twelve, have certainly not been worth the trouble in my mind.
One person who encouraged me to go to Sarah Lawrence when I was still in high school told me about the interviews in detail and explained to me that the interview process ensured that classes would be filled with people who really knew what they were getting into, and furthermore, really wanted to get into it. I thought: brilliant. Of course people should get to talk to their teachers about what they expect out of a class and how their academic backgrounds contribute to their interest and aptitude. Of course students should get a chance to sell themselves considering the high bump rate. And, to a lesser degree, of course teachers should get a feel for whether or not a student would bring anything valuable to the academic environment of the classroom. The Sarah Lawrence Handbook offered every indication that the interviews would succeed in those capacities.
In my experience, they have failed. Here I risk sounding lazy and inept, and I don’t doubt that some people have really great interviews of much substance, but the majority of my interviews have consisted of a lot of enduring and very little interviewing. We all know that the system is stressful and frustrating: you trek around campus looking for offices that are often unmarked or not where they’re supposed to be, you sign up for a time slot already occupied by two other people. The annoyances go on and on. My gripe with the system is that the inconvenience feels really unnecessary after four rounds of it.
Here is what I learned while interviewing for alternate spring registration over the past week. One teacher I talked to was a total lunatic. Another had an abrasive voice. Still another had enviable hair. The fourth eloquently paraphrased information from the course catalogue, and had an overheated office. I walked into the majority of those interviews with two or three other people, such that I could barely get a word in—let alone brag about my achievements and effectively exaggerate my interest in the course.
The point is, with a little word of mouth and a close reading of the course catalogue, I would know everything that I learned from those brief, crowded interviews. It’s true that interviews are often the one opportunity to learn about the amount of assignments and reading, but there’s no reason why that information couldn’t also be in the course catalogue. I would not argue that the deficits in the interview process increase the likelihood that students will be unhappy or unfulfilled in their chosen courses; on the contrary, interviews can probably only help to that end. I wonder though, if the stress of interviewing is really worth the few benefits that the process has consistently yielded for me.