Thursday, December 5, 2013

Ahhhh, the Start of the Semester


The start of each semester is a time of hope:
This will be the best term yet!
These students will be the best yet!
This will be the most productive term yet!

So, we started a new term at UB.  Somehow we caught the Uni off guard by starting on 6 Aug.  Who knew?
Here's the start:
  • My assigned classroom is a very nice one- Yeah!
  • The location is OK - Yeah!
  • It seated about 30 people - Yeah!  No wait, I have 174 students!!!

Not to worry, my colleague will fix everything.

He comes into my class to try to find a DIFFERENT time for the class to meet.  Not much luck there, but maybe 1300-1500 on Tuesdays would work.  We still need a classroom to meet for 174 eager, well, 174 students to meet.  So I find myself and my class with:
  • No classroom
  • No meeting day
  • No meeting time.

No Problem.  All those things will sort themselves eventually.  Sure.

Scheduling is a tough problem to solve.  There are companies that make and sell scheduling software.  Now if we could get the problem and the solution together in the same place.


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