i believe at least half of what you say. I have no experience with the other half.

yes. the classroom for 1st semester is overloaded, with a handful of students spilled over to another room. They really overbooked this year. I saw quite a few people who are repeating 1st semester. The crowdedness of the class is disconcerting, though this just means that you really have to be independent and get stuff done on your own. You get no personal attention here.

Will this be the first semester that they randomly give one shelf exam? I really don't like this idea because I can't test my knowledge in all the other subjects that I'm not gonna be tested on....

It's pretty obvious Ross has a new business plan to make more money: Accept 75 more people who are likely to fail, pocket that money. Make them repeat the whole semester, pocket another $10500 per person.

Regarding the other petty details...
yeah, the power goes out. There was a city-wide outage last night. It was a clear night. no hurricane or anything either. Only one bathroom on campus has soap. But that's life. You get used to it. It's not gonna affect my studies.