REGISTRATION

Registration Overview

Registration is split into two parts: Phase I, which occurs during FASET, and Phase II, which opens a few weeks later (students who have earned more credit hours are given priority.) It’s where you determine your first-semester schedule.

It is perhaps the first anxiety-inducing moment of your Georgia Tech career. On your second day of FASET, you sit down at a table with fellow freshmen, and the floodgates open. There are a multitude of courses you can register for, but they seem to fill within moments. Your palms sweat as you nervously enter course registration numbers and phrase like “override permits” dominate the conversation.

In reality, registration doesn’t have to be a major worry. After alln advisor will be available to help you if you register with fellow students in your major, and you’ve got plenty of flexibility. As a freshman, you might have to deal with not getting the professor you wanted or having to take an 8AM (perish the thought), but for the most part, a bit of effective planning and an open mindset will get you through without emotional turmoil.

Doing your homework: Pre-Registration

Courseoff

Registration may not be a life-changing event, but it’s something you should definitely prepare for. In the weeks and days leading up to your FASET, we highly recommend creating a Courseoff account (www.courseoff.com) to build a ‘mock schedule’. Courseoff has a list of all classes that Georgia Tech will offer during the upcoming semester and how many spots are open for each, so you can get an idea of what courses you’ll be taking in your first semester at Tech.

The page shown below is a sample schedule developed on Courseoff. First, make an account at gatech.courseoff.com (either an email or Facebook account). (Courseoff will let you continue without an account, but you won’t be able to save it.) Then, click on the right-hand menu to first search for a subject, and then look for your course within that subject from the given options. For instance, if you’re looking for Physics 2212, first search for PHYS and then look for Intro to Physics I 2212 in the second column. Then, select from the available lecture times. You can choose a lecture from any professor for that class. Then, the class should show up on the calendar on the left.

There are a couple of reasons to be cautious when using Courseoff. Firstly, the website doesn’t take into account major-restricted classes, allowing you to construct what might be an impossible schedule. (For example, an electrical engineering major who hopes to take Introduction to International Relations will find that INTA majors are given first priority for that course.) Secondly, getting too attached to your ‘dream’ schedule might lead you to disappointment when it’s blown to pieces within three minutes of registration opening. Classes fill very quickly. If you take both of these points into account, though, using Courseoff will give you a clearer picture of what to look for at registration. And hey, maybe you’ll be that one kid who gets every class he wanted! (If you are, though, be sure not to rub it in the faces of the 15 kids around you who are trying to reach the 12-credit mark to officially be considered a full time student.)

Other General Schedule Reminders:

If you are planning to take a lab science (BIO, PHYS, CHEM, EAS, etc), you must ensure that the letter of your lab section matches the letter of your lecture section. Pay attention to this when making your Courseoff schedule, because you may not be able to register for a lab section with a different letter on registration day.

Also keep in mind that both Intro Physics I and II (PHYS 2211 and PHYS 2212) have two sub-sections to choose from: Classical and Modern. Classical Physics for 2211 and 2212 is traditional physics. Modern Physics has a programming component. Different professors will teach either Classical or Modern, and it would be to your benefit to look up which professors will be teaching which section so you can sign up for the one that suits your skills and interests the best.

Limit the number of credit hours you take to around 14 for your first semester. You don’t want to overload yourself with classes when you still haven’t gotten used to Tech and still need to explore extracurricular activities. When you’re drawing up your Courseoff schedule, it’s easy to convince yourself that you’ll be fine taking more than that - after all, you’ll just learn to study harder and keep track of your time. Don’t make your first semester here any more difficult than it has to be. You’ll take your fair share of tough classes at Tech anyway.

Try as hard as possible to avoid the 3Cs - Chemistry, Calculus, and Computer Science-all in the same time. All three classes may be difficult if you have not covered at least part of the material in high school classes and if for Computer Science (specifically CS 1371) you don’t have prior coding experience.

There are two classes you should not come in with high hopes to sign up for: APPH 1040 and ENGL 1102. Both classes are required for all majors, but, because of the sheer number of students registering for them, you are by no means guaranteed a spot for those classes during your first semester. If you can snag one of those two, great! Just keep in mind that APPH 1040 is, currently, in the College of Business in Tech Square (at least 15 minutes away from any point in the middle of campus), so you may not be able to get there in time if you have a class right before then. If you can’t get these classes, don’t fret. They will be offered in future semesters. In fact, it is recommended to take ENGL 1102 in the spring, since there are usually more sections of ENGL 1102 available.

Keep track of time and distance between classes. When making your schedule, look up the buildings in which each of your classes are held and make sure that, if you have one class that begins ten minutes after another, both classes aren’t too far away from each other. To give some perspective on distance, the CULC (where many Freshman classes are held) is about 10-15 minutes away from either West or East Campus dorms, depending on how quickly you can walk. (It may be beneficial to “test” your schedule by actually walking from class to class and timing yourself.) If you find that you may be strained on time, bringing a bike to campus will definitely help.

Check to make sure that the time you give yourself between classes is designed to your preference. Having a two-hour break between classes may sound like a nice time for rest, but you may find yourself being generally unproductive during those big gaps. It may be better to schedule more classes closer together so that you can finish earlier and have more free time at the end of your day. That said, if you’re the type of person who is easily fatigued by back-to-back lectures, you might prefer to give yourself a bit of breathing room in between classes. It all boils down to personal preferences.

Lastly, design your schedule to your strengths. If you hate getting up early in the morning, stay away from 8AM classes. If you hate staying up late on a Friday night, avoid Friday night labs as much as you can. It might not be possible to stay away from either (freshmen are on the bottom of the totem pole as far as registration is concerned), but know your limits.

Course Critique

Every professor is a little different. Some check attendance, and some couldn’t care less whether students show up to every lecture, so long as they ace their exams. Many genuinely enjoy teaching introductory courses, while a few are less than enthusiastic. When you’re trying to figure out who you should take classes with, it’s tempting to look somewhere like RateMyProfessors.com. The problem with websites like that, though, is how subjective they are; personal grudges or a general dislike of the subject can taint reviews. The most objective information you can get comes from Georgia Tech itself: a tool called Course Critique (www.critique.gatech.edu). Here, you can input classes or professors and the database provides you with GPA averages and distributions. Critique is a great way to find out whether the class you’re planning to take has historically been an easy ‘A’ or serves as a weed-out for the major, but it’s not infallible. If you bump into a class with a low GPA, try to find someone who’s already taken the course (the admitted students Facebook page usually has a few current students there to provide advice, so they’d probably be happy to ask around on your behalf) to get to the bottom of the story. Maybe it’s because the professor weights attendance into the grade and some students can’t wake up early enough, for example. Or maybe you don’t want the class with an average GPA of 3.8 because the instructor is incompetent but happens to give unreasonably easy exams. It’s another tool that should be used with discretion.

Day of Registration

You’ve made it this far. You’ve built your Courseoff schedule, you’ve picked out your ideal professors, and you’re ready to put your plan into action. But there are still a few more things you need to keep in mind.

1) Get your course registration numbers (CRNs) written down before your ticket (slot for registration) opens. You can find them on Courseoff, but they’re not guaranteed to be correct, so it’s better to be safe and check on Buzzport (you can find them under the “Look Up Classes” feature of OSCAR.)

After you register on OSCAR, your Student Tab should look like this:

2) Don’t depend on Courseoff working correctly. It’s been known to crash at inopportune moments, so if you’d like to use your theoretical schedule as a resource, take a screenshot or print it out.

You’ll save yourself a headache.

3) Phase II occurs during the first week of classes. You will receive a time ticket during the first couple days of Phase II. A “time-ticket” is just the day and time Phase II registration opens for you. It will either be sent in an email or posted on OSCAR. In either case, check T-Square frequently in the days leading up to the first day of class so you know when your time-ticket is. Once you’ve received it, log on to OSCAR as soon as possible after your time-ticket opens and frequently check for any open spots in a class that you want.

4) If a class is full, it may be possible to get a registration override. Email the professor who is teaching the class. Even if they themselves are not able to provide an override, they will be able to tell you if it is allowed and may be able to direct you to a department that will be able to grant you a permit to register for a class.

5) Be flexible. The absolute worst-case scenario is that you walk out of Phase I with less than 12 credits. This is not the end of the world, by any means. During Phase II, major restrictions drop, so you’ll be eligible for a lot of courses you couldn’t register for a few weeks before. That also means that people who were going to take the class you really wanted might drop it in favor of something else, leaving a spot open for you. It may not be pretty, and you might have to compromise somewhere, but there’s no point in getting an ulcer about what should not be a stressful process