#ULOG 9: Online enlistment day! SAIS disappoints UPLB students yet again.

I woke up at 7:00 AM because of the scheduled online enlistment of subjects for the midyear term is today at 8:00 AM. I was able to enter the site, www.sais.up.edu.ph, at 7:33 AM; at 7:54 AM, I can no longer access the site. I was eagerly hoping to enlist HUM 3 (Reading Film, TV, and the Internet), a general education (GE) course under the Arts and Humanities (AH) domain.

This is no longer new. The site has always been slow due to a lot of students trying to log in at the same time. I do not experience this during the regular semester since there are separate schedules for each batch of students. I am a batch 2013 student, which means that I'm prioritized next to graduating and graduate students, i.e. MS and Ph.D. students. This gives us an edge in enlisting subjects because there are still a lot of slots left. The younger batches are at a disadvantage because, by the time they log in, there are little, if any, slots left.

I'm still trying to access it at 8:03 AM.

The page successfully loaded but I was signed out.

After 11 minutes, I'm still trying to sign in.

The page is still loading while I'm typing this post. I hope I'll be able to enlist HUM 3, the only subject I'm going to take this midyear.

It's 9:04 AM and the page is still loading.

It keeps logging me out.

hours later

It's now 5:15 PM and students still can't access the site. The following is an official announcement from the UPLB University Student Council.

An email from the SAIS team is as follows:

A number of memes appeared on my newsfeed on Facebook during the peak hours. This is students' way of coping with the difficulties and stress of enlisting subjects, especially for those who are graduating and need the subjects badly.

I attempted to access the site again at around 6 PM, hoping to enlist; however, there were no more slots for HUM 3. This gives me two options: join a petition to open a new section for HUM 3 or take an extra course to be able to register for the midyear term.

The outcome of petitions are not always predictable; these may or may not be approved, depending on the availability of faculties, classroom, and facilities. Thus, I could not rely on it alone; I had to devise a contingency plan. I signed up in the google spreadsheet file for the petition, but I still looked for another subject I could enlist and take if ever the petition gets disapproved.

When I still had plans to enter medical school, I was advised by my friends to take extra courses, i.e. those not included in our curriculum, such as PHYS 3 (General Physics I), ZOO 113 (Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy), and CHEM 160.1 (Introductory Biochemistry Laboratory), because these are required courses for students applying for med school.

Since I no longer intend to enter med school, taking extra courses is not an option anymore. However, I still opted to take CHEM 160.1 as a contingency plan. This extra course will not be included in the computation of the general weighted average (GWA), but it will surely be worthwhile, as I won't spend my midyear vacation doing nothing at home.

I was really happy when I saw that one section of CHEM 160.1 is still open. I immediately added it to my shopping cart and enrolled.

Thanks be to God; I was able to enlist the course. It's going to be a difficult one because it is a laboratory component that lasts for six hours per week during the regular semester. During the midyear term, it lasts for seven and a half hours, three times a week. Meetings are more frequent because there's only about a month for the midyear term.