Wait Lists

I met with my first class this morning. I am teaching a class that is required of all of our majors in the most popular time slot of our schedule, which means that I had the students who were enrolled plus those that were on the wait list and were smart enough to show up in case there were any open spots. Interestingly, I actually ran out of chairs today. Part of the problem is my departments because they only create enough sections for the number of seniors that year, which means there is little room for maneuvering by students. Most of the problem is that everyone wants to take the class in the fall so they can have an easy semester in the spring of their senior year. And most of them want this time slot. The class is enrolled to the limit, but I'm probably going to allow at least 2 of the students that are wait-listed to be in the class. Besides, I have too much free time this semester--I need a couple of extra papers/assignments/tests to grade!