Course registration does not provide students with the right classes at the right times

It’s the most stressful time of the year—well, maybe not the most stressful time of the year, but it is definitely up there. Registration has the chaotic energy of a Black Friday sale without the satisfaction of walking away with a deal. There is a lot of preparation that goes into deciding which classes you need and which years and/or semesters to take them. Then there is waking up at 7:00 in the morning to be ready at exactly 7:30 a.m. to get the classes that you want first. 

Of course, after all this, you never get all of the classes that you want, and sometimes not even the classes that you need. If you tend to carefully prepare for registration, you have strategically planned for this and have a multitude of back-ups available; however, the three or four plans you’ve made don’t always line up nicely, and the classes that were your backup plan might even overlap. So, you go back to the drawing board while a thousand other students scramble to get the same classes that you are. Thank God it’s online, because if it wasn’t, there would most definitely be blood. 

That being said, some of the issues that we mention don’t have easy solutions. For example, who else hates waking up ultra-early to register? Yeah, same. That being said, registration is as early as it is in order to ensure that it doesn’t interfere with times when most students have classes or other activities. Also, scheduling conflicts are bound to happen and aren’t necessarily avoidable. 

However, there are some issues that might be worth exploring solutions to. For example, there are never enough seats in classes to accommodate the people who want to take those classes; this could be electives, core required classes or even general education requirements. It is almost impossible to get into the language classes that you want. The most popular language to take at Geneseo, besides ASL, which is restricted to special education majors until open registration, is Spanish. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Geneseo students desperately scramble to take Spanish every semester, but next semester, they are only offering one section of both Spanish 101 and 102. Why is that the case when there is a serious demand for that class?

Additionally, for those who aren’t psych majors, there was a huge spike in demand for both electives and required classes in psychology a year ago. The psychology department woke up to dozens of emails from desperate students, pleading with professors and the chair of the department to be overloaded into courses that they needed. Thankfully, the psychology department was able to work everything out for students; however, it is a very different story for all of the students trying to get into Spanish who found that they clicked their “register” button too late.

All that being said, good luck, don’t get hurt, and bring tissues.