Do's and Don'ts of Freshman Registration
This series of articles are intended to provide a roadmap to navigating your college transition and first semester.
By Xavier Royer — July 20, 2022
The summer between high school and college flashes by. Incoming college freshman have survived the process of applying to universities and decided where they are going to be spending the next four-ish years. However, picking the school is not the last choice that will be made before students find themselves in a classroom. This summer will be spent making important decisions and preparations. Questions surrounding meal plans and parking passes need to be answered. This can often be an exciting but stressful time for students and parents alike, as the students’ departure to college begins to feel real.
This series of articles are intended to provide a roadmap to navigating that transition and first semester. While I have seen more than one student "turn it around" halfway through their degree, many more struggle to recover from a rough start. On the other hand, those that are successful their first year tend to be able to snowball that success into a tremendously fulfilling experience, or at the very least give themselves some breathing room for unforeseen challenges in later semesters. A strong start does not appear out of thin air, however. This series of articles will look to provide intuitive advice for incoming freshmen to smoothly launch their college careers.
This first article will look to guide incoming students through one of the first pieces of business they will need to accomplish as a student: registration. Curating that first batch of courses can be daunting. Most universities require around 120 credits (40 or so classes) for graduation. Even students entering with AP, dual-enrollment, or other transferred credits still have quite a mountain to climb, and deciding where to start can be daunting. This article will look to provide some dos and don’ts to building that first schedule. This first registration process is often the most difficult, because it is the one with the most options but least direction. This list is looking to help with at least the latter of the two problems.
Whether a specific faculty member who you will be assigned for the student’s entire campus career or more generic or temporary one, do trust and communicate with the advisor. Students should be exhaustive about any programs they are in (honors programs, for example, may have unique requirements) or demands on their time (a football player may want to take a lighter load in the fall while they are in season). A good advisor knows the course catalog backwards and forwards, and anything they tell their students should supersede anything I write here. Thoughtful advisors can create a smooth semester, but only if their advisee communicates well.
In preparation for the advising and registration, do access and understand program and graduation requirements. This will save time during registration, and make it easier for an advisor to communicate their ideas to the student. While incoming freshmen tend to tunnel vision on the first semester, good advisors often think of each semester as a piece of a bigger puzzle. This often shows up in the form of "pre-reqs," courses that need to be completed before upper-level courses that build on that material. The program requirements will show how these courses interact, and will help dictate when to take a given course. I have seen many seniors get to that final year and realize they cannot graduate on time because they are missing a pre-req they should have taken sooner.
Do take a writing class. Most universities require this. Even if they do not, incoming freshmen should still take the opportunity to work on this skill in a formal manner as soon as possible. Major is irrelevant; even a physics major will have to take other courses that require writing. Those who consider themselves strong writers in high school will discover they still need to "level-up" in college. Students will be writing bigger and more complex papers then they were previously expected. Taking a composition or equivalent course in that first semester gives them the earliest opportunity to begin developing that skill.
Do take interesting courses, but don’t take the easiest courses... yet. I did not know political science existed until my freshman registration, and taking Intro to Political Science on a whim led me to my current career. I was undeclared, but even students who enter with a major should still find that odd elective that just sounds cool. As students move through their college career, their required courses are going to take up more and more of their schedule. This means a student who waits too long may be double-booked and will have to forego that interesting elective. All that being said, if the course work is minimal, such as physical education classes, hold off. Those courses are great for seniors who need that break between their upper-level courses and big final projects. That first semester, when out of class responsibilities are lowest, is a great time for the economics major to take that niche history class on world war two.
Don’t forget to take logistics into consideration. My undergraduate university was actually three campuses separated by a shuttle. Many students found themselves desperately rearranging their schedule in the first week after underestimating the commute from one campus to the other. There is also a case for avoiding too much time between classes. Using time wisely is an important skill to develop as a college freshman. If an incoming student does not think they will be good at using an awkward hour or two between classes effectively, it may be better to opt for a tighter schedule.
My final and likely most controversial piece of advice is don’t take online courses... at least if a student can avoid it. Online courses have their place and enable many to obtain degrees who otherwise could not if they were beholden to a traditional education. On campus college freshmen, however, should be looking to connect with faculty and their peers. This is much more easily achieved in person. The first semester is as much about integrating into campus as it is the course curriculum, and being on campus is the best way to achieve that goal.
Registration can be nerve-wracking, and knowing where to start can be a mind-boggling challenge. While this article certainly did not answer every possible question about registration (something needed to be saved for the advisor), it hopefully provided some starting points for future consideration. A successful first semester is a great first step in a fulfilling college experience, and nailing that first set of courses can be a great way to kick-start an excellent freshman year.
Xavier Royer
I am currently a full time instructor at a William Penn University, a small private university in Iowa. I am the lone political science faculty member there. In my time teaching, I have already connected with an incredible cohort of students in ways I could never have expected. Partnering with SAGE will allow me the opportunity to help even more students across the globe navigate those tricky questions.
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