Advice to Barcuh

As a happy Baruch College student there are not many times I have complaints or want changes; but if I was hired to make new media/ technology related changes there would be many ideas I would come up with. One of the first new media implementations to the college I would make is voice-recorded courses.  After being in class and being a very active class member I know the importance of an in class setting and the dialog that takes place. When a student misses class or is not able to keep up with the professor during a lecture it is very hard for them to catch up even if they are able to get the notes from another classmate. Having the ability to go back and listen to the class at another time would be very helpful for studying and staying on top of the material. This could also be good for more technical courses where a lot of information is being given and there is not a lot of time to go over things multiple times.

Another new media implementation to the college I would make is interactive academic advisement sessions. A lot of students need to ask questions regarding their courses and their progress towards degree completion.  Having dealt with the lines and wait times I know it can be very frustrating discouraging. This is especially a hard situation because you don’t get to spend much time with an advisor once you do get in their office.  If students were able to have online sessions or conversations with advisors it would be more helpful and less time consuming. Overcrowding and congestion would not occur and the advisement office can be used for more serious matters that had to be deal with in person. I think this would be a more efficient way to deal with issues that one may not want to spend an hour waiting on line for.

One last piece of advice for implementation of new media would be for there to be more online/ interactive courses. I think that because so many students have different schedules it makes it really hard to schedule courses that fit your schedule and allow you to take the courses you need or want. Of course there definitely are some things and some courses that you need to have an in class structure for but I do believe there could be a lot of positive outcome from the implementation of more online courses. I think it adds to the growth of a student by completely allowing them to be responsible for the way they learn and how they structure their time for the class. I know that taking an online course has been very rewarding and should be if not mandatory a lot more available to students of all disciplines.