Registration for next semester’s classes is underway. This means that students have begun the bi-annual marathon of mental puzzling known as arranging a class schedule.  From meeting with an advisor to crossing your fingers as you scroll through the class listings, it can definitely be a stressful process, and the school does not always seem to do its best to make it any easier on us.

Speaking from my own experience, every time I go to register for classes, my schedule ends up looking nothing like I thought it would.  Sometimes the classes I need are already full by the time I get to them. Other times, it seems like the classes I need most are only offered something like every third semester, alternating between the crack of dawn or the dead of night.

Most frustrating to me is the fact that many classes that are offered at times like that are not well advertised as being that way.  One of the majors I am pursuing is Graphic Design, Photojournalism.  When I began attempting to take classes for that major, I didn’t realize that some of the professors only taught their classes in certain semesters until it was too late.

This just put me behind on the progress I could make. There has to be a way for communication to improve between the students and the faculty. First off, it can be very confusing when the degree requirements change from year to year. The faculty needs to stick to one path for a longer period of time, or at least hang onto a copy of the plan you came in with. Every semester, I have been presented with the graduation requirements, but I can never be sure if they are the same as the last time I saw them.

Additionally, the names of classes can be listed in several different ways. It is not always easy to figure out if you have met all of your requirements if a class is lurking in multiple categories. There needs to be more clarity on what departments a class falls under, if it falls under multiple departments.

What it boils down to is that I believe it would be beneficial for the students to receive updates on the special availability of the classes they need to take based on their major. As a Photojournalism major, it would have been helpful to me if I had been given a list of the classes that might be difficult to plan ahead for.

I am not saying that the university does a bad job at offering course listings for students, but that there is room for improvement. If the school were to keep a more thorough record of the degree requirements as they have changed from year to year and offer a forum where students could look up classes based on their availability restrictions further ahead of time, I believe it would make the registration process easier for all involved.