First day is over ...

My first official work day is over, but all I had was office hours so it wasn't exactly hard. Tomorrow (Tuesday) I give my first lecture of the semester to a roomful of 170 students. One of the things I find funny is that most people say "170? Oh my!" but I find that I get just as nervous preparing a first-day lecture for 170 students as I do a class of 24. Of course I'd much rather grade papers for a class of 24 than 170, but that's another post.

One thing I'm not looking forward to dealing with this week is petitioners. On our campus we have no registration wait lists and must do a random lottery of all attending petitioners to fill up empty slots. Considering that our math and science classes are ~100% enrolled currently, and I know there are more students looking for classes, I suspect I'll get a bunch of petitioners. I heard of some math classes last semester that had more petitioners show up than students officially enrolled in the class.

I spent some of today looking into how I can get students the PRS transmitters I'm requiring. As you may remember, last time I posted the bookstore said they were having problems ordering the transmitters separately from the book bundle I ordered. Apparently the bookstore was trying to order the units from the book publisher instead of EduCue itself, as I'd told them they needed to do in a memo 2 months ago, grr. Now they've told me that they'll need to "go through their home office" and setup an account with EduCue, which could take weeks.

However, thanks to my hard-working book rep and the EduCue website, I found out today that students can order the transmitters directly from the manufacturer, skirting the bookstore entirely. Considering that the bookstore is marking up the book/transmitter bundle nearly 35% over their cost, and doesn't have a single used book for sale, I don't feel too bad for them if they lose a few sales.