With all the recent moves made by the Board of Trustees and the Faculty Senate, it’s becoming more and more difficult to keep up on the issues that directly affect students.

One of the big changes that will impact incoming students is the transfer module system. This involves a change to the LER standards intended to assist students transferring from one Ohio university to another. And although this change may not look too bad on paper, the action will leave future Kent State students displeased.

Students will no longer be able to take both of the required English classes during their freshman year. Instead the two course will be split up between students’ first and second year of college. But it’s not the English that students should be worried about, it’s the science.

The Faculty Senate has approved a move that will require all students to take at least six credit hours of science and a one credit hour lab. These new changes will take effect for students entering Kent State in the Fall 2006 semester.

These labs, intended to give students a hands-on approach to the scientific method, will do nothing more than take more money out of students’ bank accounts. The time and money that will be spent on skills will just go to waste. Going to college is expensive as it is, let’s not increase the cost by adding pricey labs to student schedules.

Students would benefit more if they were able to take more classes within their major, instead of struggling to pull off a C in Seven Ideas that Shook the Universe. There are already few different science classes available to students who are not majoring in a type of science. The number of different lab classes will also be scarce.

Students in the nursing program are required to take several lab classes, most of which fill up fast. So if the nursing students can’t get into a lab class, where is the university going to find professors and rooms for the rest of the student population?

The transfer module system in general is trying to make all students fit into the same mold and that just doesn’t always work. Not all students are good with science, and even fewer will actually be able to apply what they have been taught in science classrooms to their future professions.

The above editorial is the consensus opinion of the editorial board of the Daily Kent Stater.