Trinity: Time to Pick Classes??!!??

By Adam Karp

Staff Writer

his fiasco started last Thursday night. I happened to look into my mailbox, and to my surprise there was mail! However, it happened to be a blue envelope that contained information about registering for the spring term. I thought, "I'll deal with this later." I conveniently put the envelope back into my mailbox, closed the door, and thought "that's the end of that."

This whole episode leads us to Sunday night. I had decided to at least look over what Trinity had to offer. This was a grueling process. Let's see, distributions, overlapping time conflicts, and prerequisites are just some of the things I had to worry about. I went to bed Sunday night having a pretty good idea of what courses I would take. The times seemed to be fine and the distribution seemed decent. I also knew that I would have to obtain the permission of some instructors. I decided to do this Monday afternoon after I had completed my classes. I was really proud of myself. Registration is due Friday and I'm going to take care of it on Monday.

As I had left my classes on Monday, I proceeded to walk to the respective offices where I needed permission requests. The first office was for a professor who was teaching a political science class. On his door was a waiting list of 40 people for two classes. Give me a break! It's Monday afternoon, the first day of registration, and there's a 40 person waiting list? "Okay don't panic, you have plenty of time" was what I kept saying to myself. The next class that I wanted to take was canceled; another smooth move.

Well that's it. The whole schedule that I had put together was shot. I had to sit down and figure out what classes were still available and hope that they weren't full either. I wish I could continue this story but it's still a work in progress.

Here are some freshman words of wisdom for the next registration week: go to the registrar's office a week before everyone receives their package then claim stupidity or say that you have an emergency during that week and your friend will take permission requests around for you. The next step is to sit down and plan out your courses while everyone else is clueless. On Sunday night, before registration week, your mission is clear: break into every office that is closed, sift through the other permission request forms, and place yours first. This seems to be the only guarantee to get into every class that you want.