Final EMS104 Podcast

Nick, Dominic, and Kyle discuss the issues they have with Bentley, focusing on course registration and the gym. They feel that course registration is a major problem, as they often don't get the classes they want, even with priority and honors status. They suggest expanding class sizes and offering more sections of important classes. The gym is also a concern, with limited space and broken machines. They suggest improving the gym's size and maintenance. Dominic also mentions the housing situation, where he and his roommate were unable to find housing due to high demand. They suggest investing in more dorms or accepting fewer students to avoid this issue. Overall, they want Bentley to address these concerns and improve the student experience. Hello, everyone. This is the first episode of the podcast ran by me, Nick and Dominic. And today we're going to be focusing on the things that are wrong with Bentley and what can be done to improve upon them. And so I know we all have our own gripes about our school and we just want to see it be as good as it can possibly be. So we each have our own opinions on what's wrong with it. And personally, to start off, I think that course registration is a major problem here. So we all know the feeling of setting up your perfect schedule and you don't get any of the classes that you wanted to. This semester, I personally got two out of the five classes that I wanted. And I'm supposed to have priority and honors. And that's another thing. I feel like going early doesn't help whatsoever. So we pick at 730. Obviously, everyone here knows. And you still end up not getting everything you need. And this can come down to a lot of things. Slower computers is definitely an issue or the Wi-Fi not working great. It can really impact your course selection in general. And also, I feel like there's not enough honors classes. Like I could only get one honors class when I was registering for courses this semester. And I feel like there needs to be more sections or even they can expand the class size a little bit. I know it's supposed to be smaller classes because it's honors. But 18 kids in a class is really, really small. And I just think they could offer more there so that kids can take the classes that they want and not end up being forced into classes that they don't want to take, which just can lead them down to getting a bad grade because they don't even want to be in the class in the first place. So my solution to the course registration problem, I would say, again, like I talked about before, bigger class sizes, especially in honors. You can bump that up another 10 for every class. And would that fit into the current classrooms we have? Probably not. That's really the main problem that's holding it back from expanding on class sizes. But I think honors classes especially, there is room in the classes to expand those. Also, more sections, especially more sections of important classes like business dynamics or classes that we're required to take, especially like EMS, like this class. I just feel like there should be more availability, especially in the better time slots. What happens to a lot of people that pick class, especially other freshmen, is by the time they get to pick, the only times available are like night classes or 8 a.m. like times that no one really wants. So I feel like there should be more options in these prime times around 11, 12, 32, where most people would want to get their classes done. So moving on to my second personal gripe with Bentley is the gym. I'm frequently in the gym here at Bentley, and it's not as great as I think it should be, especially for what we're paying with our tuition. My first problem is, especially at the start of the semester, is that it's busy all the time, and this is just because of how small it is. I understand that there's only like 4,000 kids at this school, but the gym is really tiny, and I think they underestimate how many people go to the gym. There are times where you're sitting there waiting in line for a machine, which should never really happen. And also another thing about the gym is that a lot of the machines are always broken, and they don't get fixed for a long time. Personally, there's this leg extension machine that me and my roommate really like that's broken right now, and it has not been fixed. It's been over a month. And also one of the cables just broke. That will not be fixed, I guarantee, until next year. Another small gripe that I have about the water filler, the pressure is horrible. So it takes like a minute and a half to fill your water, when it should take like 10 seconds. And they fix it every now and then, and then it just breaks again. So I feel like there has to be just a better solution to that in general. That's a small thing though, not as important as like the size of the gym or stuff always being broken. Also, it's just kind of weird to me how there's the same amount of cardio machines as there are weights. I feel like more people want weights, not to do cardio, just in my opinion. And just to like, get that down, I mean, finally, I feel like Bentley in general just needs to know their audience. I think a lot more people go to the gym than they think. And I think it would be a really good investment to expand upon it, or at least keep it so that all the machines work and all the water fillers work. But those are my two gripes with Bentley. And now I'm going to move on to Dominic. This is Dominic. So Kyle had a lot of good stuff to say, especially about the gym. And that's going to be the first thing I talked about as well as someone who also goes to the gym pretty frequently. I've noticed a lot of problems, just things that I've picked up over the course of being here for almost two full semesters now. So I personally always go to the gym in the morning, normally around the time that it opens. And since I go in the morning a lot on certain days, it is closed or has a delayed opening without really much warning. For example, on Patriots Day, which happened pretty recently, I went to the gym at 8am, and it was closed. And usually when the gym isn't operating on normal hours, there's a post about it on an Instagram page called Bentley Recreation, where they post the gym hours and other things of that such. And I checked the page because I've made the mistake before, early in the first semester of going before it opened, especially on weekends, since it opens pretty late at 10am. But I went before Patriots Day that Monday when we had class off, I went on the Bentley Recreation instead to see if they posted anything about a different opening time or the gym being closed. And there was nothing on the Instagram, so I assumed it would be open. So I got up early, I drank a bunch of caffeine. But when I got down there after a nice seven minute walk, it ended up being closed, which is super frustrating because it throws off my schedule with working out for the rest of the week. And also, it's a big waste of time. And I could have slept in. But I wasn't able to do that. Another thing about the gym that a lot of people complain about is the opening time specifically on weekends. I think during the weekdays, it opens at seven, which is definitely early enough. But on weekends, it opens at 10, which is pretty late, considering a lot of things on the weekend start kind of around then, for example, I usually try to go to church on Sundays, where I have to leave at 11 to do that, or I have to leave at 1030 to do that, which means I can't really work out before that because the gym opens at 10, which I don't really like going to the gym in the times other than the morning. So this is a problem for me, it forces me to go Saturday, and not all the time am I available to go Saturday. So the late opening time on the weekends is definitely also another big problem. And then I also second the other issues Kyle talked about, which are the machines being broken. And that's pretty normal for a gym, like the gym I went to at home, machines are always broken. Like that's a normal thing. But the problem is they take a while to fix it. So it kind of like once the machine is down, it's out for at least a month at a time. And again, the water fountain, like Kyle talked about, does have low pressure. And that's a pretty big safety hazard for a gym. And now I want to talk about the housing situation at Bentley, which is the second complaint I have. And I am very biased towards this because for housing for next year, me and my roommate don't even have a place to live because our priority numbers were too high. And every other spot on campus filled up before we got to select. So again, I'm definitely biased towards this. But it's all due to how many people were accepted in our class. And it's no secret that our class was a little over accepted. We're like the biggest class at the school by far. And the school should just be more careful of that because now I'm about to go into my second year and I don't have a spot to live. So the school should either. So just so I have a suggestion, so it doesn't just sound like I'm complaining, but the school either needs to invest in more dorms or just accept less students for the next class so that stuff like this doesn't happen. And yeah, so and me and my friend also went to someone in housing before this election for help just with the overall process. And we never got an email back. So especially if they knew how rough housing would be with how many kids are there, they should have their employees be more on top of things, especially with helping students. And this is before I even knew I wouldn't have a place to live. But we did go to a housing meeting and we were never given an email back, which I don't think is fair. And also considering the time that selecting housing comes in in our semester, it's towards finals. So having to deal with this while also having final essays to write and final presentations to give, it's just a super inconvenient time. And in my opinion, it's something the school should try to make easier for the students to make them less stressed out, especially during final season. This is Nick. And just like Kyle and Dominic said, I've also had issues with course registration as well as the quality of the gym here at Bentley. So for course registration this semester, I'd spent hours the week before preparing my schedule and making sure I had backup plans in case I got rejected from some of the classes. And when I woke up at 7.30 on the day of, just like all of you, I ended up only getting two out of the five classes I had wanted and none of the honors classes that I wanted. So I ended up having to enroll in the last available honors class, which was a course that I really didn't want to take at all. So I think this kind of speaks to the size of our class in general, which is too big, and also the number of courses, which is too little, especially for honors. I think that we definitely need more sections to accommodate to all the students. Also, I know a lot of people like the class sizes for honors because they're small. I think it's like 18 or 19, but I feel like it would be better if we increase this number of students per class and it would allow for more students to take the classes that they really want to take. So next, I also have some similar problems with the quality of the gym, which both Kyle and Dominic also talked about. So first of all, I know we have a small student body compared to other schools, but even so, the gym is entirely too small. It doesn't have enough equipment, in my opinion. If you go at any time from like 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., it's always packed and you have to wait in lines for machines, which really shouldn't be happening, honestly. Also, the quality of the equipment is not great, in my opinion, when compared to other gyms. Like personally, the gym I go to at home has much newer and updated equipment, and also has more options for different muscle groups of what machines you want to use. Another thing is that it seems like a new machine is broken every day I go to the gym, and when I notice this, it's normally not fixed for at least a week. And my last issue with the gym is that it closes way too early, and people who like to go to the gym late, like me, I normally go between like 7 and 9 p.m. On weekends, I think it closes at like 6 on Friday or something, and it's just too early, honestly. I don't see any reason why we wouldn't have it open. It's not like there's any staff monitoring it. I feel like it should just be open later for the people that want to go late. So some solutions for these problems are to simply buy new equipment and make sure that there's efficient maintenance. Also, I feel like we could get rid of some of the cardio equipment upstairs and replace it with more weights. Also, just keeping the gym open until at least 9 on the weekends would be beneficial for me, and I'm sure a lot of other people that like to go to the gym late. So now I'm going to talk about my most prominent complaint about Bentley, which is the dining situation. So first, I'm going to talk about the general dining hall, the 921. I feel like it's just the same food every day. I either have pasta or I have a burrito every day. I'm honestly really getting sick of the food. I feel like the staff could definitely make variations and new things so that we don't get bored of the food. Also, I feel like this goes for La Cava too, but La Cava closes at like 7.30, and the dining hall closes at like 7.45, 8. And I think this is way too early for it to be closing. Personally, when I'm at home, I'm eating meals all the way up until like 4 a.m. to stay up late. So when my last meal here is at like 6.45 or 7.30, I end up pretty hungry later in the night. I know that Harry's is open until like 2 a.m., but the food at Harry's honestly just isn't really good. When I eat the food there, I end up getting sick or I just have heartburn and can't sleep right after I eat it. So normally, I end up pretty much starving when I go to bed. This is just my personal complaint. But I feel like some solutions to this would obviously just be, you know, have new variations of food sometimes during the week, and also just to keep the dining hall and maybe La Cava open a little later. I'd say at least till 9.30 or 10. I mean, if they have staff at Harry's all the way up until 1 or 2 a.m., I don't see why the dining hall couldn't be open at the same time. So to conclude this episode of our podcast, our main complaints are about course registration, especially for honor students, the quality of the gym here at Bentley, and housing selection, and finally the dining hall options. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode, and thank you for listening.