Newly minted SSOL enthusiast Adam Weiss reminded Bwog of some important and welcome changes to your Student Services Online.

For one, a search will not only bring up classes, but their registration statuses. Oh, and search now also brings up the course description when the call number is entered.

Now there are fewer things to be disappointed about and inconvenienced by on registration day!

While the campus prepares for the visit of the two presidential candidates, students have already gotten started on the fall election. the College Democrats, MSA, and Free Culture are co-sponsoring a campus-wide voter registration initiative, modeled on the popular CUAssassins game that every year afflicts students with amusingly high levels of paranoia. Teams of students will compete to register as many students as possible, with the overall goal being "100% registration of the entire freshman class, and anyone else who isn't registered." The three teams with the most registrants receive "significant cash prizes."

The clubs have partnered with well-known off-campus organizations such Rock the Vote, HeadCount, Mobilize.Org, and the League of Women Voters. Dems Lead Activist Jenna Hovel also told Bwog that members from many other campus political groups, including CQA, BSO, and the Asian-American Alliance, are involved, though the boards have not officially co-sponsored it (yet). Frankly, though, Bwog just wants to see the Assassins-esque "kill stories."

To register your team, e-mail ac.cudems@gmail.com.

Still unsure about what to take next semester? Bwogger Pierce Stanley offers a few suggestions. Yes, they're real classes.

I. The Interrogative Variety

Spring 2008 Religion W4722
NOTHING, GOD, FREEDOM

Spring 2008 Philosophy BC1001
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?

Spring 2008 French G8650
WHAT IS FRANCE?

Spring 2008 Philosophy G9482
MEANING

Spring 2008 Anthropology G6085
THING THEORY

II. Roe v. Wade: the Remix

Spring 2008 Anthropology V3972
CONCEPTION AND THE FETUS

Spring 2008 Anthropology V3974
LOST WORLD/SEC SPACES:MOD/CHLD

Spring 2008 Anthropology V3977
TRAUMA

Spring 2008 Anthropology G4173
THE DEAD,TERMINABLE/INTERMINB

Spring 2008 History BC4324
VIENNA & BIRTH OF THE MODERN

Just a quick announcement: registration times for Fall 2007 are now online.

If you choose your classes based on name (hey, that's how some people choose their colleges), here again is our review of the most interesting course titles from the Fall 2007 bulletin. Also, until we get an official evaluation system, there's still some use for Culpa.

Back to the Future
HISTORY/THEORY OF AVANT-GARDE - Art History BC3658
HISTORY OF THE FUTURE- History W4914
MULTIPLE MODERNITIES - Art History G6650

Manhattan
BUREAUCRATIC POLITICS - Fall 2007 Political Science W3921 section 005
HEALTH CONS OF FORCED MIGRATN - Population and Family Health P8687
ISSUES THAT DIVIDE AMERICA- Fall 2007 Political Science W3921 section 002

Grindhouse
PULP BIOLOGY - Dentistry: Endodontics (DOS) D9216
AESTHETICS OF THE GROTESQUE - Comparative Literature and Society V3190

For the First-Years
INTRODUCTION TO PERSONALITY - Psychology W2610
LOGIC OF COLLECTIVE CHOICE - Political Science W3220
DRUGS AND DISEASE - Biology W4300

For the Barnard First-Years
THE BEAUTIFUL SEA - First-Year Seminar BC1457
THE ORDINARY ESTRANGED - First-Year Seminar BC1180
THE ART OF BEING ONESELF - First-Year Seminar BC1166
SPIRITUAL JOURNEYS IN FICTION - First-Year Seminar BC1185

Wordplay
COLUMBIA/NYU-KANT-ONTEMP ISSU - Philosophy G9259
ARCHEOLOGIES OF LANGUAGE - English W3890

It's registration week again, and for all the liberal arts majors looking for yet another substance-less "interesting"-sounding class to clear that 12-point "full time student" hurdle, or a weighed down science major seeking an escape, Bwog has done the favor of combing through the mammoth Directory of Classes- er, well, we only really cared about the titles. Henceforth we present the sequel to the September Blue and White's "Alternative Registration"- Spring 2007's most curious course headings.

I. The Pre-Core Curriculum

• Spring 2007 Earth and Environmental Sciences V1053
  PLANET EARTH
• Spring 2007 First-Year Seminar BC1150
  ON THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN NATURE
• Spring 2007 First-Year Seminar BC1172
  CHILDHOOD IN WONDERLAND
• Spring 2007 Architecture A4651
  THE ORDINARY
• Spring 2007 School of International & Public Affairs U0001
  CONCENTRATION
• Spring 2007 Science W3920
  IGNORANCE
  (Notes: SENIORS ONLY MAY REGISTER FOR THIS CLASS)

Columbia's a mess of bureaucracy. We all know that. You even have to deal with bureaucracy online — think class registration. Open SSOL. Open the Directory of Classes. Open the Bulletin. Open CULPA. Flip back and forth like mad as you try to correlate classes between the directory and SSOL and the Bulletin, check up on their teachers on Culpa, and register for what's (hopefully) the right class. It's insane. And it's why the recent changes to various administrative websites are a big, promising step in the right direction. Bwog Techonology Specialist Mark Holden brings you a discussion of some of the changes that have been made, and what direction future changes need to take.

Health Services
The Health Services website has moved into the 21st century in multiple ways: the design is nice and aesthetic, and now it's possible to schedule an appointment online. I mean, that's sort of a "d'oh!" feature these days in the world of e-commerce and social networking, but at least now they've got it.

SSOL
The previous incarnation of SSOL was starting to show its age, and while the new SSOL design is pretty snazzy, unfortunately the design is about all that's different. The underlying software remains as counterintuitive and difficult to use as it's always been. Admittedly, it'd be more work for Columbia to overhaul SSOL from the ground up, but damn, the system needs it. The changes to SSOL so far amount to taking an old lemon of a car, repainting it, and failing to repair the engine. While they're nice, they're not enough — we need a complete overhaul.

Directory of Classes
Nothing has changed. Everything needs to change. The directory of classes is so unprofessional looking that when I first encountered it as an almost-freshman, I immediately clicked away thinking that it was an outdated resource. I'd imagine I wasn't the only one. Look at it! Look!!! Look at that logo! Read it straight across like a normal human being and look what it says: "Directory University Columbia of Classes." Disturbingly poor design on the part of a multi-billion dollar university. Worthless!

Environmental Stewardship
Columbia has a stylish new website devoted to saving the world. It provides in easily-comprehensible format lots of resources for environmentally concerned students, such as info on "green computing" and "reduce, reuse, recycle." It looks promising both for the environment, in terms of the content it presents, and the people that might want more info, in terms of usability and design.

What needs to happen
The current registration system is a disgrace. It's the most back-asswards, confusing, unmanageable registration system on the face of the earth. SSOL, the directory of classes, and the bulletin currently are three distinct entities, when really they should be linked together so that students can easily read about classes and major requirements from within SSOL and then with one click register for the right class. The present system is awkward, unwieldy, and confusing, an outmoded dinosaur from the early days of the internet that somehow hasn't yet expired. It's about time it were scrapped.