Twice a year the students of UConn witness and partake in a massive panic that stems from two words: class scheduling.

The struggle begins with a cursory, “oh, when’s your pick time?” You respond with nonchalance, while a seed of doubt is planted in your mind. You miraculously log in to studentadmin, which somehow is working, and take a cursory glance at schedule builder.

And, wow, that elusive W course that you’ve been trying to take for the past three semesters? It fits in nicely right between that other major requirement and the ever coveted Ling 1010 class, that nice easy GPA booster you’ve been dying to take.

So you send it to the shopping cart, pat yourself on the back, and promptly forget the whole terrifying ordeal.

Until its three weeks into October, you don’t actually know when your pick time is, studentadmin returns to its normal finicky self and oh look, that elusive W that fits nicely in between those two classes? Filled up. Why? Oh, because it's reserved for someone.

Sometimes it's someone in the major, sometimes it's for honors students. But all that matters is, that beautiful schedule you had planned? You can kiss it goodbye because someone, who might not even have more credits than you, had an earlier pick time.

This is a struggle that every student goes through. It feels like the best you can do is just sit through it, rebuild your schedule, beg for a permission number, or pray that some poor soul hates the class enough to drop it so you can get bumped up from the waitlist.

You never solve the problem, and then you’re in your last year, desperately trying to fulfill all those requirements you couldn’t because someone else’s pick time was before yours, and got the classes you need.

So what can you do? It may seem like there’s no hope, but you can do something about it. Some professors will witness your panic and be willing to help.

If the problem is you need a W, and can’t seem to schedule one, start out small and find a course you are interested in with a professor you like. Ask your professor if you could change the course into a W. The requirements for a W are that you write and edit 15 pages of text throughout the semester.

If you’re struggling with getting a major requirement, ask your advisor to see what your options are and if there are any alternatives. Sometimes just sending a polite email asking for a permission number and explaining why you need the class will do the job. Sometimes, dropping by their office hours to ask for a permission number does the trick.

If you’re looking for a chill class that won’t kill your GPA, ask around. Sometimes you’ll find some obscure class that a friend took is actually a piece of cake and totally worth looking into.

Or, you can pray that the poor soul who hated the class enough to drop it wasn’t right about how bad the class is going to be.

Throughout college, you’re going to have to face the randomly annoying stress of picking classes, which is really only relevant for four weeks of the year. Best of luck to everyone in the midst of stressing about future classes while juggling midterms, work, and all the season finales!