Freedom from the Study Card

Technology and freedom have long gone together, marching lockstep throughout history, each in tandem conferring benefits upon the human race and releasing humankind from its abject servitude to capricious nature. Now, the historical process has culminated in yet another palpable victory for human freedom. Soon, online course registration will liberate Harvard students from the tyranny of the study card.

Who among Harvard students has not felt the oppressive weight of the study card beat upon his or her brow?  From the long, hard trek to Sever Hall to claim one’s card, one’s yoke, to the agony of filling out laboriously the myriad bubbles with obscure course numbers, to the patriarchal ritual of seeking out and gaining the approval of one’s academic adviser-cum-overlord, the study card is an institution without which Harvard students will be better off.

And the savings from online registration will not just be in time, but in convenience and money. No more will the failure to reach the old ladies who collect the cards by their deadline result in heartbreak and monetary loss—the tide of technology is doubtless indifferent to whether one clicks “confirm selection” at 4:59 or 5:01. The add/drop system, too, can be made free not just metaphysically, but also in that it will cost zero dollars to enact necessary changes to one’s course schedule. All these changes are great improvements.

But, alas, though technology’s progress is inevitable, it is also fickle. Just as cold fusion failed to free the world from oil and coal, so has the online course registration system, as of yet, failed to bring its promised benefit to Harvard. Testing and implementation of this comprehensive new system is doubtless necessarily painstaking. However, we pray that the College implements this technological marvel as soon as it is able, so those in the student body scheduled to graduate next June will be offered a fleeting glimpse of the future of the registrar’s art.