Waiting List and (Informal) Audits

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See Waiting List - Final Message for an update on the waiting list.

September 5 Note

To those of you on the waiting list as of today (Sep 5, 1pm)…

To those of you who didn’t get the first waiting list announcement, it is here: http://pages.graphics.cs.wisc.edu/765-24/posts/waitlist/ (I sent it via email last week).

There are 23 people on the waiting list. There are 79 people still enrolled. I do expect more people to drop. 11 people didn’t show up yesterday - I have sent them email asking them to drop sooner rather than later.

My plan is to see what happens today, and then ask CSEnrollment to let people in. There will be a wave of invitations today (or tomorrow morning). I suspect it will be the last one. Again, I can tell them how many people to let in - they choose who has priority.

One question I was asked (by email and in class yesterday): I cannot allow un-enrolled students to attend.

Officially this is not allowed (there is a formal audit process). The university wants to serve the “paying customers” - if we give away the product…

But more practically, it is unfair. It is unfair to the other students who want to take the class but can’t.

It is also unfair to the students in the class: the participatory nature of the class means that having “non-students” in the class can break the dynamic. “Why did that person not have to do the work?” Also, more people means that the class is bigger, and bigger is worse.

It is also less valuable: the lectures are only one component of the whole class, and designed to work with everything else (the readings, the assignments, the discussions). The class is not a spectator sport.

Sometimes, the “volunteers” are the ones who are most interested, most engaged, and most likely to show up (since they are doing it because they want to). But for fairness, I must ask that you do not come to class if you are not enrolled. You are free to look at the class website.

I do expect to teach this class again next fall.