Registration for Spring 2018 courses at Fairfield will begin this week.

Every year, students suffer and lose pieces of their souls as they watch classes fill up, get error messages or end up on a course wait list. The process is a long one, especially if you are an underclassmen and are the last to register, and it is undoubtedly a hierarchy.

There are 15 stages that every Fairfield student experiences during their four years while registering for new courses.

1. After weeks of waiting, you finally receive the upcoming semester’s course booklet.

2. You pull up your Degree Eval and try to decipher the remaining requirements for your major(s) and/or minor(s).

3. Then you cross-compare your requirements with what is offered and realize that you’re mostly taking late-night turbos.

4. You pray that you won’t have a thrice-a-week course, or a Wednesday turbo, so that you have at least one day off of classes.

5. Eventually, you sum up the courage to look at your registration time.

6. Then you collapse from relief because for once you were given the first official time slot.

7. That is, until you remember that student-athletes still get preferential treatment and are registering before you.

8. You get your PIN number from your adviser, who 10/10 times will send you off thinking that the process will be fine.

9. The day has arrived … you log onto my.Fairfield five minutes before your time slot and start refreshing.

10. Then, you’re able to get into the system and the 76th Hunger Games begins, and everyone becomes your enemy.

11. You start entering course CRN numbers and clicking rapid-fire to add them before the seats fill up.

12. You watch as the available seats diminish, and your hope flickers with it.

13. Every other word is a prayer or a curse that the system won’t crash and you won’t end up on another wait list like last year when you only technically registered for two courses.

14. Finally, you confirm your list of courses and look at them on the schedule offered.

15. Lastly, if you’re like me, you breathe a sigh of relief because you've survived your last course registration at Fairfield.