By Katie Southon, SCS Advising Leader
Course registration is right around the corner! It can be a daunting task to plan your schedule for the next semester, but it’s important to plan ahead so that you can take the classes you want and stay on track to graduate. Here are some tips and tricks from a senior who’s gone through registration seven times before.
First, you’ll want to make a four-year plan. No, seriously. It sounds scary to plan for four years down the line, but there’s a couple of modifications I have made to make the whole process less overwhelming. I made an excel sheet to make my four-year plan so that it was easily editable and reachable for the next four years: I’ve been using the same one since I was a freshman and just editing it as I go along. First, I started with the required courses that are in my degree sequence. As a chemical engineer, this meant that I had to take CHEM 202 before I could take CHEM 204, so I knew I could place those in their respective semesters. The degree requirements are linked for chemical engineering, BSLAS chemistry, and specialized chemistry. You can also access your DARS audit to see the specific courses you still need to graduate.
For general education requirements, courses for my minor, and technical electives, I don’t always put down specific course numbers. It can be challenging to know if a specific optional course is going to fit in with required classes in your schedule. Instead, I would write “technical elective” or “non-western gen-ed” and fill it in with an exact course code once I had generated a plan for the upcoming semester.
Banner Self-Service is the place to go to generate plans, check your time ticket, and register for classes. You can also check if you have holds on your account: for instance, if you need to meet with your advisor before registering, you’ll have a hold until you have that meeting. Log in, go to Registration & Records, and then click Enhanced Registration. Make sure you check that you have no holds on your account early, as you won’t be able to register for classes until these are removed.
My favorite part of Self-Service is the Schedule Generator option. You can load in all the classes you need to take, block off time for other obligations you may have (or, if you’re like me, block off any 8 am classes if at all possible) and then have the generator show you every possible combination of your class schedule. You can compare schedules and also save your favorite plans. These saved plans can be loaded in when your time ticket opens for registration, making registration a much faster process. Instead of adding each class individually, you can click a button to load in all the classes and class times, registering for all of them together.
I hope you feel a little more prepared about how to plan and register for classes. If you are still worried about registration or are unsure of any step of this process, be sure to stop by your advisor’s office. You can set up an advising appointment or stop by during express advising for quick questions. Be sure to be proactive about meeting with them for the quickest response time as registration season is busy. Happy registering!