Thoughts on Registration

Registration for spring semester classes begins the week of November 4. Students have a wide range of resources to help them plan their classes: at minimum, they must meet with their lower division (i.e., pre-major) adviser by November 1 to get their registration hold removed, but they can also confer with faculty or other adult mentors on campus, the Office of Academic Advising, and (to a lesser extent) their network of Wake friends to consider their class choices.

As a former academic adviser, my best professional advice is that things tend to work best for students if they use any of the above networks for advice, and not their parents or family members. This is not meant as a slight to any first-year families. But the reality is that official advisers on campus are going to be able to provide the best advice to students about classes, as they know our system in detail.

If your students come to you asking course registration advice, I’d encourage you to flip the script and redirect with questions: What has your adviser said about your proposed course selections? Where on campus have you tried to talk about your course planning? Are there faculty/departments who could be helpful? Where might you go to find more information?

You should know that in addition to having an assigned academic adviser, students can avail themselves of help from the professional academic counselors in the Office of Academic Advising. The Academic Bulletin will help them understand requirements for majors and minors, and the Course Completion Checklists on the Registrar’s website can also help students keep track of required coursework.

I will share an anecdote from a former student who used to come see me informally as a thinking partner. This student had struggled a little at Wake and one of their parents was trying to be helpful and suggested the student take a particular course in art history, as their student had liked art in high school. The way this course had been set up (it was a lot of memorization, which the parent did not realize) did not play to the student’s strengths, and so the parent-recommended course ended up being something that was causing stress, not alleviating stress.

So as tempted as you may be, you are likely to serve your student best if you don’t get involved in their course planning. If you recommend X class to your Deac [with nothing but the best of intentions] and they sign up and later discover they don’t like that class or are struggling grade-wise, then your Deacs might blame you. This is a time for your Deac to make their own choices.