You're in! Now what?
So many of us senior students have accumulated a lot of knowledge when talking about how to apply for various universities and colleges. We've had it ingrained in our heads how important it is to apply for school, meet deadlines, etc. By now, most of us have been accepted into our programs and are looking towards the next chapter in our academic career! As exciting as it is, you may be thinking to yourself, "what now?". As much as many of us know the procedure for applying to school, not many of us understand what processes we must go through once we accept an offer. How do I register? What courses do I take? How do I know what these course codes even mean? If any of these questions are things you've been asking yourself, stick around and we'll answer your questions!
1) The first thing you will want to do when looking at making a schedule and getting set up for first year is logging into your school website with your new student ID that you will have signed up for using the prompts and instructions emailed to you by your university. For our purposes, we will be using the University of Windsor as our example.
Log into MyUWindsor with your student ID and go to the Registration tab and click on Timetable links here for all the courses offered, grouped by program. This link will show you all the timetables for the Fall, Winter, Intersession and Summer schedules. Registration is not open at this time for Fall students, so if you would like to get an idea of what classes you can take, who the professor is and what time it would be offered, check the Fall 2014 PDF as it will probably mirror the Fall 2015 schedule coming up!
Course codes: Each class is identified with a course code made up of a variation of numbers that are significant to the faculty, type of class and year. eg. 02 - 46 - 115 - 01
Red = Faculty code (eg. Human Kinetics, Business, Engineering,etc.)
Green = Subject code (eg. Biology, Pschycology)
Blue = Course code (eg. first digit represents year of study - year one =115)
Purple = Section code (eg. Biology 1 or Biology 2)
The above photo is a screenshot of one of the courses found in the Fall 2014 timetable. It includes the section, number of credits that the course is worth (3.00), beginning and end time of the course (10-11:20 AM), where it is located (HK building), the professor (Andrews) and the exam time (Dec. 10th 8:30 am)
It is extremely important when choosing course that you check that you are able to be present for the exam date as it cannot be changed. Be sure to check if you have any conflicting schedule times before choosing a course time.
Sometimes there will be extra notes to take into consideration like the one in the above picture regarding extra quizzes on another day separate to the lecture times. Make sure to take these notes into consideration when scheduling in other class times.
2) How do I register?
New first year students will be able to log into their Uwindsor or any university account on May 11th to register for courses. Depending on your program, registration may open on different dates and times. If you are curious, there is a tenative Fall Year 1 2015 timetable HERE that you can check out if you want to start planning early!
3) How soon should I register?
AS SOON AS YOU CAN! In talking to older university students, the biggest piece of advice they gave us in regards to registration was doing it as soon as it opens up. One Biology student Maria even said that on registration day she gets up about 15 minutes before it opens and continuously refreshes the page until she can select her courses! One time, she said, registration opened at 9:00 am and by 9:05 she already was on a waitlist for one of her classes!
Now, don't get too worried. We're not telling you this to scare you - it is simply important to know that if you want to be absolutely sure you'll get into the class you need at the time that works best for you the way to eradicate any anxiety is to sign up at the earliest time! Keep in mind that major first year courses such as Cell Biology are a requirement for all students therefore they will add classes or space if they must. The difference is you may get stuck with a time that you don't want that might CONFLICT with other exam times! With higher year courses it is easier to fill up quickly as the class sizes get smaller and space for electives opens up more and more as you journey through university.
4)Speaking of exam times...
Believe it or not, when you pick your class, you are ALSO choosing your exam time for that particular course! So be sure to pay extra attention to what module you are choosing to enroll in so that you do not end up with a conflicting schedule where you have two exams at the same time or that overlap!
5) What if there's no other option to fix my conflicting schedule?
If this happens to be you come May, call the univeristy's registration office and see what they can do for you. There is not a lot that you can do yourself at this point. If you are on a waitlist, a spot may open up! Just be sure to communicate clearly with the university if you have an issue! YOU and you only are responsible for and conflicts or problems. Bring it to their attention if you need help fixing something!
6) What is a waitlist and how does it work?
A waitlist is a list that the university will put you on if a class is full and there are no other current spots in it. If you are on a waitlist, the first person on it will be able to enter the full class if someone in it changes their courses or basically just opts out of the class. It is so important that you check your waitlist status DAILY in the event that you are put on one! Many times your rank (number with respect to people in front of you) will drop significantly each day. Make sure you are aware of how close/far you are from enrolling in the class! If you are on the top of the list and do not register within a certain short time frame, the spot will go to the next person! Make sure you don't lose your opportunity!
Those are our 6 top tips and question responses for registration for university! We hope this helped you put your mind to ease about the process and inform you a little further!
Good luck registering,
Your Grade 12 Peer Helpers
