Computer Students Suffering From Terminal Room Blues

In what has become an annual Reading Period rite, computer students are crowding the Science Center terminal room in a last-ditch effort to complete semester projects.

More than 300 students enrolled in Applied Sciences 10, an introductory computer course, must write and execute a long program by the end of this week.

"It's obscene what they expect us to go through to complete these projects." Molly F. Hunt '85, a student in the class, said yesterday. Students complain of frequent "crashes"--computer breakdowns--and long waiting lines in the terminal room.

But members of the teaching staff said the situation was not especially serious this year. "Things haven't gotten any better, things haven't gotten any worse," said Vassos Hadzilacos, a head tutor for the course.

Course instructor Philip A. Bernstein said the students had ample time to complete the project even though the computer was inoperative for a week earlier in the semester.

"There was basically bad management of time," said Hadzilacos of the students.

Throughout the semester students have worked at odd hours to avoid lines and repeated "crashes." "It's a hassle if you come during prime time, after dinner," said Theodore M. Doolittle '86. "I'd come here late at night, around 1 or 2 a.m., and go to bed around 4 or 5 a.m."

But the computer crunch hits hardest during the two weeks of Reading Period. "If you were smart, you could have gotten your project done before Christmas, but it doesn't always work that way," said Hunt.

Though the computer has been overloaded this month, the situation has improved in the past few years, said Bernstein. "We are enlarging the capacity of the computer system all the time," he said, adding. "But it's very hard to do appropriate planning from one year to the next."