It’s gotta be that - they’re either dumb, or they’re evil. I’d bet that they’re all nice people, with good intentions though, so it must be stupidity. What else produces THIS:

Dear Legal Studies student,

As a Legal Studies major, you may be interested in the Financial Regulation specialization, detailed at http://www.ucalendar.uwaterloo.ca/ARTS/legal_studies.html.

This specialization requires successful completion of 7 specific courses, including AFM 332: Accounting, Assurance and the Law. The course is only offered every 2-3 years, and is currently scheduled for the Fall 2007 term. However, due to low enrollment at this time, there is a risk of the course being cancelled.

Pre-requisites for AFM 332 are:
-AFM 101/102 or AFM 131/123
and
-AFM 231 or MTHEL 100

If you are intend to complete the Financial Regulation specialization, I strongly encourage you to enroll in AFM 332 immediately. If you require further information or assistance, please contact me or Professor ProfGurl13.

All the best.

A Woman

A required course is only taught once every 2-3 YEARS? Wow dude, that just blows. I’m not in the Financial Regulation option, but on none of the sheets I’ve gotten for LS have they ever put in brackets, “LS 101 (Offered every fall term); MTHEL 100 (Offered every three terms except in leap years)” - you’re just supposed to make your schedule, fitting things in whenever you can.

Therefore, there’s very likely no warning before this for the Financial Regulation students. And in this case especially, warning=good because THERE ARE PREREQUISITES. Even if every Financial Regulation student said, “Shit, I wanted to graduate this year!”, if they’re taking one of the prerequisite courses in the fall term, they’re doomed.

And there’s a good chance it will be CANCELED this year? Of course, the best part is that they just realized it now. I filled out my course selection a few weeks ago - why, right after the second-year enrollment appointments closed, didn’t they realize this mess? Also, I see things perhaps differently then the school does. I figure, if someone’s paying you thousands of dollars for their education, you have a RESPONSIBILITY to offer them required courses.

It’s just not optional, and not based on numbers - you say, “you need this course to graduate” - you make sure that they’re given the opportunity in a timely fashion or are able to schedule things in such a way that they’re able to take the course.

Little birdie says that they’re rebuilding my program from the ground up next year… with crap like this happening it’s no surprise.