The idea of summer classes is either planned out from the near end of spring semester or hits you abruptly the day before the registration deadline. Either way, it's imperative that you know what to keep in mind when researching, registering, and taking your classes during the summer semester.

Researching:

When first deciding upon which classes to take, the initial step that makes the most sense would be to look at your degree audit and figure out what is coming next for you. Once you have a set of classes, you know you need to make the first major summer class decision, which is either to be challenged or go easy. This crucial decision will be determinate of the climate for your entire summer.

Going easy can be great for saving time, but if it isn't self-paced (which we'll get into later), you could end up forgetting you're even in class. The latter may or may not be better. Taking a class that is too challenging and time-consuming can not only take time away from other summer plans but overall just stress you out and have you feel as though the semester never ended.

- In my experience, it's better to go with the challenging course because only taking one or two challenging courses in the summer gives you more opportunity to focus on the subject and study without distractions from other classes. Make sure when you pick the class if it 's hard it's one you can manage with limited resources because during the summer whether in class or online there aren't as many options available to you.

- If you're looking to take classes at another school, it may be a good idea to research the opinion of courses at the college. Biology may seem like a reasonable course to you but who knows, at another college, it could be notoriously difficult. Also, check out the professor ratings for the other college because as most of us college students know the professors and TAs are what make or break you in a course.

Registering

As some of you have probably seen from the many posts from people regarding the deadline to add or drop classes, it can be very stressful registering for classes. Obviously, the best advice for this situation is to get an early start and make sure you know all the details on summer semester before the spring semester ends. There are more class options in the beginning than near the closing of registration, plus it gives you more of an idea of what's available for the summer and future semesters.

- If you decide to take classes at another college the transient application process can be a nightmare so here are some general guidelines. Look at the transfer guidelines for the school you're going to be taking classes with and call them if you have questions about the classes. Believe it or not, the other colleges have registration deadlines as well, and if they're different, then the class you want may fill up or just be unavailable to you by the time you register. Also, don't think you can register for a class at your home college while the application is processing just to stay safe, the system picks that up and automatically makes you ineligible to register.

General Dos and Don'ts While Taking the Course

Do- look at the syllabus and make a schedule like you would for fall and spring, Just because it's summer doesn't mean you can be that care-free with the course.

Don't- take an evening class or exam, they're not fun, and you're just not going to want to do it especially in the summer time

Do- attend class, since it's summer time professors expect a lot of "in class" students to be absent which makes them more prone to give exam or quiz help or extra credit.