On Nov. 12, the Registrar's Office released the course schedule for the Spring 2025 semester. Depending on your registered courses’ availability, you might need to request more to maintain your academic status. As this process can be unfamiliar to first-year students, in this article, here are five practices (CREST) that I use in every course registration to optimize my credit loads:
- Consult your Academic Advisor
Academic advisors oversee their students’ transcripts so they will have a good overall understanding of your progress, especially if you major in their department. They can advise you on which alternative courses to take or direct you to other faculty members whose courses you just missed out on. To make the most out of these meetings, you should bring in a list of your expectations for your course selection.
- Revise your Requirements:
Regardless of your choice of degree, keeping track of your courses aligned with your academic requirements is crucial in helping you draft the most optimal route toward graduation. What other competencies do you still need to fulfill (W, Q, and S)? How many 300-level courses does your major require? Which alternative courses can you take to acquire similar and transferable knowledge, skills, and connections to the ones you failed to enroll in? Are there courses that can fulfill multiple conditions, including those from your fellowship programs, if any?
- Email faculty members of interest:
If there is a specific course that you would like to take next semester, don’t hesitate to contact or stop by during the office hours of an instructor to express your enthusiasm. After confirming that you are qualified for the course, they can put you on a waitlist or give you a Special Permission Access Code (SPAC) to grant you immediate enrollment in a course. If not, you can also ask them if that course will return the following semester or academic year, then plan your next steps accordingly.
- Seek Peer Reviews:
Peer feedback is an excellent resource for course and faculty review because you are more likely to have shared concerns such as the course difficulty, faculty’s teaching style and expected outcomes. More importantly, they can provide you with more detailed responses compared to review websites such as Rate My Professors, which are often polarized. I often reach out to my friends and ask in student group chats for insights on my courses of interest.
- Take Risks!
Sometimes the available courses are not what you most want, and that’s okay. Alternatives include but are not limited to independent studies, teaching assistantships, credit-bearing internships or off-campus studies (remember to consult your advisor(s) and learn about related procedures in advance). Otherwise, it is important to make the most out of your current schedule and available options. One of the core benefits of a liberal arts education is the capacity for cross-departmental exploration. I was able to figure out my passion for education after taking a course in Education Studies per a friend’s suggestion!
All five tips (just remember CREST) come back to one main point: You got this, but you must take the initiative, whether it is an email to a faculty member or a request for a syllabus from a friend. Registering for courses can feel like a lottery process (and in many ways, it is)! However, as you declare your major and join upperclassmen, you will be given more priority in course selection, both in the particular requirements and rostering mechanism.
Depending on how many credits you still need to add, the course adjustment process will be open until Feb. 3, 2025. While there is still a lot of time, I suggest starting early. You know what they say about early birds. And frankly, Tigers are the same.