I graduated this semester with a bachelor of science degree from the department of computer engineering. I liked the program enough that I thought a master's degree would be a good idea. Upon registering for the spring semester I found that I had a choice of ten 500-level computer engineering courses.

To my dismay I found that two of the classes had been cancelled when I attempted to register, via telephone, on Jan. 2. When I came into the department of electrical and computer engineering to pick up a copy of my schedule I found that two more of my classes had been cancelled. The first Tuesday of classes I saw a note on one of my class dorrs saying the course had been cancelled for the semester.

If I took a class here at Penn State and got five out of ten points in the class I would flunk and receive no credit for my effort. By this logic the administration receives an F this semester. I hope and expect that you will start treating your graduate students, and for that matter the faculty, with some respect by decreasing the load on individual classes and allowing students to select their courses rather than have them selected for them by default. If this current trend of course reduction continues, Penn State may lose many of its graduate students to schools who can make the passing grade.