Classes overcrowded, extra space needed
Every student has been forced to sit in jam-packed classroom or a psychology class in the Coliseum.
My current biopsychology class used to take brain scans to help students further learn about the process in a hands-on way, but now the current professor says because of the class size increase to 70, it's no longer possible and the students are relegated to an online simulation.
Having to cram yourself in an auditorium because the University of South Carolina is letting more and more students into USC is not academically conducive.
At the football game against Troy last season, a student getting off the bus at the stadium asked me where the stadium was located.
As a senior who has not missed a football game, it was frustrating for me to see and learn of many similar circumstances where freshman were not able to get into football games, but that's the reality with the expanding USC population.
The Daily Gamecock reported last week that only 32 percent of freshmen who requested tickets were given a ticket. The USC experience I signed up for is changing in and out of the classroom for current and future USC students. Students frequently complain about poor parking or the limits of the CarolinaCard, but only small changes can be made because of capacity issues and contracts.
USC had an opportunity to fix the issue of overcrowded classrooms, but has closed the door on that possibility.
Sen. Lindsey Graham revealed in the announcement of the lease to the Department of Justice at a press conference in July 2009, "This agreement is the winning combination for both the Department of Justice and the University of South Carolina," but it's not the winning combination for a student in a crammed classroom or for a professor with an inability to give adequate one-on-one help to a struggling student.
The eight stories of 29 classrooms in the soon-to-be former Moore School of Business could drastically improve many classroom capacity issues at USC, but the Department of Justice will be enjoying those rooms as USC plays landlord.
At the conference, the President of the University stood in the background in agreement as Sen. Graham made this declaration.
If the President had the best interests of USC students in mind, he would have never allowed this 20-year lease.
But the University of South Carolina isn't just students.
It's the Board of Trustees, the finance department and legislators like Lindsey Graham.
It's clear those groups and individuals have more pull than the 30,000 walking daily around the Columbia campus being crammed into classrooms.
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