Working till late hours of the night on getting the newspaper out, the members of the editorial board and the DC staff don’t think we have enough time on our hands. We carry full class loads, write and edit stories for the paper and lay out what you see everyday in newsstands. Some of us also have internships and part-time jobs. So for anyone who complains about having too much work, we say, quit complaining.

For us, SMU is not too easy. A news series that ran in The Daily Campus earlier this week proved that for most students, it is.

We believe that SMU can be as challenging as you want it to be. Taking the easiest classes and putting forth the minimal amount of effort will not challenge you. The article states that the problem SMU has in retaining students and improving graduation rates is because students are more focused on socializing than studying.

We all applied and came to college to further our education, but it seems that many SMU students are not doing that. It seems that most SMU students came to college not to get a degree, but to have a good “Animal House” time.

A big problem that we believe contributes to these issues is the lack of an advising system at SMU. Yes, we have one, but it obviously doesn’t work all that well. Dedman College advisers have more advisees than they can keep track of, giving them little chance to get to know the students they are supposed to help.

This leaves students weaving through a dark maze to graduation – or in the case of many, no graduation at all. More and more students are coming to college not knowing what they want to do. A liberal arts education like the one we have here at SMU is supposed to guide these lost souls to the major hand-tailored for them. Instead, students are taking more GEC classes than necessary – taking basket weaving during their junior year rather than an upper level marketing class.

There are also students who go out and get the job done. There just happen to be programs, such as an engineering “four plus one,” in which a student can get his or her undergraduate and master’s degree in just five years, something that is not taken into consideration.

At the end of the day, making classes harder is not going to better student experiences on campus. Just a little help on what direction to take can go a long way. Maybe before adding to work loads that are already a bit much, just letting students know what to take and when will go a long way.