By: Zasha Hayes
Students who chose to enroll in East Los Angeles College’s spring semester have experienced a change in the enrollment process.
In past semesters, students were encouraged to meet with counselors when it came time to enroll in new courses. By doing this, students were informed of what classes they needed and if they were on track in their educational plan.
For this semester, students are allowed and must self-enroll in courses they need to graduate. Students can request and schedule meetings with their counselors through Cranium Cafe if questions arise about how to enroll or where they might be on their path to graduation.
The new enrollment process is an easy and quick procedure that can be done in less than an hour, if the student knows what they’re doing.
The steps for self-enrollment are as follows:
The student should log into the ELAC website. Once done, their student homepage should appear. On this homepage, the student will see multiple boxes that will assist them on their path to graduation. The box to click for self-enrollment is the ‘Manage Classes’ box.
This page will show a list of choices. The student should click the ‘Search Class and Enroll’ box. From there, the student can look up the classes they need and add them to their shopping cart or enroll in the course.
There are also options to drop classes, swap classes, view enrollment dates and more that will help a student during this enrollment change.
The only downsides to this new enrollment process are when students need to schedule an appointment with their counselors.
At times, when logging into Cranium Cafe, certain counselors are offline. This results in the student not being able to make an appointment. Other times, when looking for a date to schedule an appointment, there would be no available dates.
This is a minor change and inconvenience compared to scheduling appointments on campus.
Students who have successfully enrolled this semester are currently taking classes, however, some students who enrolled might be on waitlists for those courses. Those who are, are advised to consistently check their laccd.edu email for any updates. There are late enrollment classes currently available for ELAC.
Students who choose to enroll later have until April 12 and April 13 to enroll without a permission number.
Any student who is enrolled at ELAC is advised to be wary of drop deadlines for their courses. The first drop deadline has passed during the first two weeks of the semester, and there is a second deadline for those who wish to drop with a W. Professors are not responsible for dropping students, so the student must drop the course if they feel they can’t complete the course materials and requirements.
The new enrollment process also comes with a number of services the students can access. Due to the change from on-campus to online courses at ELAC, students are given access to online workshops that are conducted via Zoom.
These consist of assistance from the Transfer Center, Financial Aid workshops, and a number of affinity group workshops.
Despite the common thought that online classes are harder to complete, ELAC has given multiple services to be successful during the pandemic.
Because of this, the transition from on-campus courses has been a fairly straightforward adjustment.
The courses available at ELAC are all online and separated into two categories, synchronous and asynchronous.
Professors who chose to teach synchronous courses use Zoom in place of on-campus learning. For these courses, there is a scheduled meeting time for the professor(s) and students. During this time, professors will continue with their course curriculum.
Canvas is also used to complete the courses in synchronous and asynchronous classes. This platform is also something that can be used efficiently. Unlike synchronous courses, asynchronous courses only use Canvas as a means of communication and learning.
Typically, professors post videos, lectures and exams on the platform. Students are then responsible for checking the platform for updates.
Professors usually have their students download the Canvas app for quick and easy access to their course and its updates.
Students can contact their professors via Canvas or email as means of communication.
The new enrollment process should be easy enough for students to learn. It’s just as easy as meeting in-person to enroll for future courses.