No matter what college you attend, all students go through the troubles of scheduling. Scheduling is a stressful thing that we have to go through, not once, but twice a year. And if you take summer classes, well that's even more stressful. Scheduling gives me anxiety for so many reasons. I'm sure it would be much easier to do if I didn't care about so many things, but of course, we try to do the impossible and create the perfect schedule.
Timing.
Your schedule time is one of the most important factors in this process. Maybe you'll be blessed and get to schedule first. Unfortunately, some of us don't get to schedule until weeks after everyone else. That puts us behind because all the good classes are taken.
Requirements.
You still have to fill those Gen-Eds, but the amount of classes you can take are endless. Now it's just a matter of which classes are the most fun and easy.
Core Classes.
More importantly, we have our core classes. So, time to look at the requirements for our major to see which classes we just have to take.
Credit hours.
We're told to aim around 15-18 credit hours a semester but the amount of credits a semester you take is based on each person. Although more credits calls for a busier and more challenging semester, reaching that maximum amount of hours is crucial to some people. For example, accounting majors need 150 credits to sit for their CPA, so they aim for the higher credits. After you have all your core classes and gen-ed requirements, finding easy classes to fill up those extra hours may be a little tough. This is where the fun classes come in -- first aid, golf, chocolate science, wine and beer? Take them all. It's called being cultured.
When.
Now that you have picked out all the classes you want to take, you wait for the schedule planner to generate a potential schedule. It normally gives you a ton of options so you have to decipher between which class times you want. 8 a.m.? Definitely not 8 p.m.? This is the worst part of it all because no matter what, you'll usually get stuck with a class at some absurd time that you just really didn't want.
Alright, now that you have all your classes picked and you have attempted to create the perfect schedule, time to actually enroll in your cart. Now, if you think you're done you've got it all wrong.
Class is full.
You were a couple of minutes late and you find out that the class has already filled up; so it's time to pick a new one. This is hard because you're trying to schedule as fast as possible so that you still have a spot in the other courses. This might be the most stressful part of it all. Make sure to have a backup class in mind so you aren't freaking out last minute.
These are the reasons why scheduling absolutely SUCKS. But thank god that it's over and that you don't have to do it again, until next semester. Hope you all have some easy classes and I'll pray for all those 8 a.m. classes you got stuck with.
