As was mentioned earlier this week in the Daily Deac blog, we are registering first year students for the remainder of their coursework. This is taking place with the Office of Academic Advising and a small group of academic advisers. So far, the process seems to be going well.
To give you a sense of how we are registering the students, we first look at the Course Preference Survey that students complete (showing which classes they want to take, potential major, desired number of credit hours, etc.), then we look to see what the student had registered for him/herself. Once we get a sense of what the student has requested, we incrementally add courses that the student requested, aiming for optimal balance and not overloading someone. For example, you want to make sure that a student who says they are not strong in science doesn’t get a second science course added, or someone who does not like writing to take a second literature class.
From my perspective, things have been going well. There have been a few instances where a lot of students all want the same First Year Seminar and we have to go a little deeper on their wish list, or alternately try to find seminars that match up with their other expressed interests. For example, I have had some students who claim they will be bio majors not get their requested First Year Seminars, but I was able to find an open seat in a FYS that dealt with ecology and the sciences. We are trying to match people sensitively in that regard.
We continue this work until next Friday, but so far, so good!
