Student Suggestions

I'm a parent of two young kids and I just started back to school at LWTech.  It's really frustrating that child care ends at 5:30 (if Covid restrictions end) but my classes every night end at 5:50.  Also, you don't seem to sync your calendar with the public school system?  Seattle Public Schools has a Teacher In-Service Day on 10/14/22 (no school), but LWTech takes their In-Service Day on 10/17/22 (so my kids have school, but I do not, making for more child care difficulties).  These see like huge disconnects that would be relatively easy to fix.Just sync child care end time with class end times, and sync LWTech off days with SPS off days. I'm a stay-at-home parent who has been out of workforce for 8 years and needs a skills update, so I've started back to school at LWTech.  But so far, I don't feel like LWTech is factoring parents into your schedule.  It seems to me that parents are probably an important part of your student body and you should be doing a better job of making LWTech classes accessible to parents by doing simple things like extending child care 20 minutes (!) and taking the same teacher in-service days as the public school systems.  I think you need to add a student/parent to your student government, because these two schedule disconnects with parent-students seem really silly and obvious and I'd appreciate a point of contact who could explain them to me.  Also, you might think about having a point of contact in workforce development and career services for student/parents.

During the cold months (October-March) studying in classes can be challenging, would be great if there’s a option with hot water in cafeteria. Either a hot/cold water cooler or a kettle will help (make noodle or hot tea) keep students warm in cold weather. Why it’s so hard to get information about fitness center? Nothing on your website, nobody knows how to sign up for and who is responsible for? It physically exist but get access to, you might need some magical power. 

There are potholes in the parking lot that would be cool to fix. Aromantic and omnisexual pride pins would be nice since you already have their counterparts (asexual and pansexual)

The Espresso stopwatch needs to be open at least till 6:30 pm for evening students.

When creating the scheduling for the next quarter, I would like the schedulers to make sure classes that are required for each degree aren't conflicting with each other. There is one class that is always conflicting with my degree class and they are always scheduled at the same time and day. I would like to finish my degree in the projected time. Scheduling needs to work with the Dept to make sure the classes are working together. NOW, if the classes are conflicting and there's no way to change it, please have professors be willing to record the classes and also not require attendances. Those two things would allow students to take the class they need and not have to wait for another full year to take that class. I am finding myself having to come back another quarter for 1 class! Like really!! If only that professor was willing to record and not take attendance, I would not have had to drop that class in order to go to my degree class!!!! Especially, when that's a required class for my degree!! 

I would also like to suggest that students are made aware that classes are only offered quarterly, so if you don't take a class Fall quarter, you won't be able to take it again till the next Fall quarter. I didn't know that coming from a semester format and a larger college that I thought classes were offered year-round. However, it would had been nice to be made aware of that, so that I could have planned my academic journey better. Maybe that should be explained to incoming freshmen by advisors so that everyone takes the necessary classes, and this might help make classes fuller also because they understand that it's only being offered that 1 quarter. Depending on the class, maybe offer it during more than 1 quarter. There's a few classes in the 100 and 200 I see that are offered often, but maybe rotate those less taken one with a 300 one because after we take a 100 or 200 class we are all required to take a 300. I'm dreading waiting a whole year to take 1 class. Just a few thoughts!