Fall Registration Agony

Fall Registration Agony

Alison Neubrand

Every semester, I log on to WebAdvisor on registration day and impatiently watch the clock until my assigned time to fill in my schedule for the upcoming semester. My fingers are frozen on the keyboard as I stare at the clock until exactly the right time to click the“submit” button. Then the waiting begins as the next page loads to tell you that you have registered successfully. I sit hoping that the classes I wanted and needed weren’t filled up in the few seconds it took for me to register. I go through this same routine every semester as I stressfully sign up for classes.

This semester was no different. I was very anxious because this was the first time I would be registering for upper level classes in my major, communications with a specialization in public relations. Those classes are typically smaller than some core classes so there may have been no space for me to take some of the classes I needed. Some upper-level communications courses also are only offered during a certain semester, so I had to make sure I was picking the ones that were offered exclusively in the fall or else I would have to wait until fall of my senior year to take them.

Just choosing which classes I would be taking was nerve-racking enough, but then I had to worry about when the classes were. I commute and I wanted to cluster my classes together so I wouldn’t be on campus all day every day. Luckily, most communications classes are in the afternoon and I could coordinate all of them to be on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Loyola decided that this semester they would go paperless with the course catalogue, forcing all students to look up the courses online through Inside Loyola or WebAdvisor. This is what really made me stressed and worried about registering. I have been using the book that we used to get in our mailboxes for the last three semesters to circle possible choices and organize a plan for my classes,but by switching to the online version, I found it very hard to figure out which classes overlapped.

Luckily, on registration day, I was able to register for all the classes I wanted, but it was very close. One class, Global Public Relations, is only offered next fall. I barely made it into that class because there were only two open spots when I logged on at my registration time of 11:00AM. Even with my fairly early registration time, I still found the experience to be a very hard and stressful one.