Jeffrey Sanford '10
I haven't used it too much - I've mostly relied on Mocha, the student-run service - but from Banner, I've been disappointed. I think that the amount of money the school put into it wasn't worth the end product. It's really an eyesore to look at, and just the whole set up of it is very not user friendly and not functional in a manner that most students are used to in a technological age.
I haven't any trouble with caps or anything, most of my classes have been capped. There has been some trouble with courses that require (what used to be) a teacher's signature, the difficulty being getting the course code from them and logging in and signing up, which you can't do beforehand.
Emily Segal '10
Well, pretty much every professor has expressed that Banner is seriously lacking. I think it's been the experience of pretty much everyone using Banner that it has some pretty serious flaws.
On the one hand, it's sort of absurd to think at this moment in time that we'd still be registering using paper, but it does seem that the interface necessary to register for classes is a really, really crucial one, and that it has managed to have so many flaws is pretty surprising to me, because a lot of money and energy has been put into it.
Yeah, Banner's irritating. I'm sure I would have been able to lie and cheat and wiggle my way into things that I don't quite have the prerequisites more easily if I could just write down on paper and bamboozle my professors into signing the sheet.
Still, as it is I think it'll be ok-I don't think it's really going to damage my preregistration experience that much. For looking up stuff and figuring things out, I only use Mocha.
Doug Benedicto '08
Luckily, it's turned out that shopping period hasn't been as much trouble on Banner as I thought it would be and as a lot of other people though it would be. It's been pretty easy to add and drop classes.
The user interface, however, is still embarrassing - it's just really an awful system. I can't really use it unless I use Mocha. I can't use the interface on Banner. I haven't had trouble getting into any courses with Banner. I have had trouble with one large class that I'm in with arranging labs because the professor did away with preference cards for which sections the students want.
Adria Katz '10
I never thought that BOCA was very well orchestrated because you couldn't see everything at once.
I think the good thing about Banner is that all of your information is there, like your financial information and your Banner ID is up at the top, so it's easy to get.
Still, I've had trouble seeing everything that I'm registered for on Banner and on my MyCourses account, but I think that can be worked out.
I tried to pre-register for a class called Film Architecture and they said it was one of those classes with essentially no cap. It turns out that there are only 40 spots, or maybe it was 30 and they were making it 40 because of the mistake. So I ended up only preregistering for three classes, which was a little bit of trouble because it would have been good for my major if I could have taken that class.
