College Course Registration

Starting out college can be pretty stressful – you’re possibly living in a dorm room or an on or off campus apartment and then there’s all the stress that goes with starting college classes and registering for them. While this can be stressful at first, it does get better. It’s the newness of the situation that will give you the most stress. You’re going to be in a new environment and doing different things like possibly living on your own and planning your own college schedule. Sure, you’ll have an academic advisor, but they won’t be registering you for classes – they’re there to help you out, not do the work for you like your advisor in high school may have done. What this means is a few things – you’re going to have to pick out the classes you want to take on your own, register on your own, and also be prepared for anything by having a back-up option for every class on your planned schedule. Classes fill up quickly, especially when you’re a freshman and get the last round of registration – you’re going to need to create a back-up schedule because chances are you won’t get your first pick. 

Now once you get accepted into your college of choice and you sit down and look at the credits the college wants you to take, you’re going to be really overwhelmed, we’re not going to lie. You’re looking at taking 120+ credits throughout your time there and when you look at the course credit map you may just want to curl up in your bed, sleep, and forget about it. It isn’t that bad though. You’re going to be breaking it up into chunks and we’re going to help you with how you can do that. 

First of all, make sure you have a master copy of the credits you need to take, get a designated folder for it, and keep it throughout all of your years at college. Make a spreadsheet if you want/have to. What you’re going to do with this sheet is keep track of the classes as you take them throughout all of your college years. You don’t need to take detailed notes here – simply crossing/checking items off will do (if there are multiple credits that you need to take, such as in your major, then expect to cross something off multiple times – this means you don’t want to completely black out the subject and instead make sure it’s still legible). The more detailed class list of classes you’ve taken will be in your online course management system that shows your grades, GPA, and any other relevant information. 

Obviously, when you first have this course credit list it’s going to be scary because you have nothing crossed off. It looks like an overwhelming mess, but put a positive spin on it by thinking of it as an open road with plenty of possibilities. You can’t and don’t want to start off your college life by taking all electives. In fact, leave those until later, possibly even your second year of college. You definitely don’t want to start off with electives in your first semester – you’re just starting out college and need to get used to things and you may develop interests in other classes throughout your college years and want to use your electives then. You also don’t want to start out your first semester with a lot of classes from your chosen major. Classes for your chosen major (for example English or History classes) will make up the bulk of your college credits, but you don’t want to pack your early semesters with them. 

Are there any classes you need to take as a Freshman, specifically a first semester freshman? Add those into your course schedule first. Are there any classes such as Math that you only need to take one or two classes in just to fulfil your core class obligation? Add those in next. Don’t procrastinate and leave these until later. Get these done and over with while you still have fresh knowledge about the subject from high school. It will make things a lot easier for you, trust us. 

The best way to build your first semester schedule is to take a class from each subject until you’ve fulfilled your required credit limit. Whatever you do, don’t reach for the maximum amount of credits your first semester! You’ll burn yourself out way too quickly.