The SCG needs a new life

Ask students if the Student Course Guide (SCG) has helped them choose classes for the upcoming term, and the responses will not be encouraging. For upperclassmen, the SCG used to be a well-organized and easily accessible database of course reviews that allowed students to select classes with numerous — albeit biased — opinions on professors, workloads and expectations. But for freshmen, the SCG is in such bad shape that they cannot even imagine what this dying resource used to offer students. Indeed, some freshmen are even surprised to hear the SCG exists. All this point to one thing: The SCG needs a new life.

Part of the SCG's problem lies in its unattractive presentation. The interface needs to be more visually appealing, with customizable color schemes and adjustable settings. Students should be able to navigate by department and distribution, and all classes within each folder should appear with course numbers, titles, professors, schedules and other relevant information. Searching should have an advanced feature that allows students to find results with multiple criteria. In addition, the SCG should have a link on the Registrar's website, because the current link on Point is lost in a cluttered sidebar. While the old SCG was by no means a visual tour-de-force, its simple interface made it easy to use. The designers of the SCG would do well to take that to heart.

The SCG also lacks content of sufficient quality. Currently, the SCG relies on students to submit voluntary course reviews and posts a massive PDF file containing the paper-based course reviews written on the last day of class. While the PDF is a start, the SCG should pay students to write course reviews online. This system, which has worked in previous years, would have someone read submitted reviews and select worthy responses to be awarded with payment. Over the past few weeks, the USG has lured students to write reviews in exchange for food. By offering food, the USG has accepted that students need tangible incentives to write reviews. But money may be a more effective scheme.

Of all the services the USG provides, the SCG is among the most critical because it has the potential to directly benefit every student at Princeton — particularly freshmen who typically know fewer experienced upperclassmen. If the next USG administration is searching for a way to markedly improve student life, it should look no further than the SCG.