Registering for the Last Time. Part 1

I just registered for classes for the last time and I have mixed emotions. On one hand, I am ecstatic that I deal with the mess of registering. On the other hand, reality is sinking in and pretty soon I will have to go into the real world.

Registering for classes is just a big pain in the ass. First you gotta find out what classes you need to graduate on time. Prerequisites are annoying because you can’t put them off, and then going through your degree guide to make sure you satisfy their high maintenance goals (social science, writing intensives, non-western, physical science). I swear sometimes I think the school is more high maintenance than a girlfriend.

After I figured out that I only need two more major classes and a social science I thought that my last semester could be relatively easy. However, I need to have 17 total hours to get the mandatory 124 hours. Damn the fine print.

Therefore I was looking for classes like basket weaving, badminton, or some other fun class. I already took scuba this semester, and thought about advanced scuba until I saw the $265 lab fee. In some colleges they have a “wine” class, where you can taste test different wines and figure out the differences between a merlot, cabernet, pinot noir, etc. I would pay infinite amounts of money to be able to drink for a class. Unfortunately, University of Tampa does not offer a wine class, so my liver can breathe a sigh of relief.

After I found out what fun classes I want to take to cap off my UT career, I had to get them cleared by my adviser. My adviser is awesome and she just lets me email her my schedule and she signs off. I’ll be damned if I had to actually get up and walk over to Sykes if I don’t have to.

Then after you think you are fine to register, you check SpartanWeb and you have a hold on your account. So i had to get up walk the whole 300 steps to Plant Hall and up four flights of stairs to get pay the school to get my hold taken off. Then walk ALL the way back to register.

When I finally get situated, I start to register. My friend Kyle and I have four classes together this semester and we do a good job studying together, so we decided to take our last two classes together, which are primarily group projects. He registered before me and I could not get into the same class. Damn the system.

The absolute worst part about registering is trying to get the classes to fit into together and work for you. I don’t want hours between classes, nor do I want one in the middle of the day… I got stuff to do. Also, you want to have a good teacher, so you gotta check ratemyprofessor.com and check. There’s no class that is worth a bad teacher.

Besides MGT 431, FIN 491 and Crimonology 101 (stupid social sciences), I wanted to take classes that interest me. So I picked Latin Dance, Journalism, and Job Search strategies. I picked those because every class I did want to take, with the teacher that I wanted, overlapped a mandatory class by 15 minutes.

If a class ends at 2:15, other classes on campus shouldn’t start at 2. That happened to me at least three times. I could have taken COM 224 instead of Crim 101, but then I wouldn’t get the teacher I wanted in MGT 431, and not be able to Latin Dance and so on. It became this complex problem and I actually had to get pen and paper out and map out my week.

My advice to the younger crowd: Get your mandatory stuff done early! Get your social sciences, physical sciences and electives done. Find classes that take care of your non-western, IG, writing intensive all in one class. Dance 200 takes care of writing intensive, non western, IG and art-athestic, plus Susan Taylor Lennon teaches it and she is awesome. (She is the one responsible for motivating me to keep on writing. So you can either thank her or blame her for creating a monster.)

So, get all of those “dumb classes that you are never going to use later” done within the first two years. Take summer school if you have to. By doing that, you can focus on your major for the next two years, and then take fun, interesting classes and have an easy senior year.

So because you have to figure out what you want, what teachers to take, how its going to fit in your schedule, get signed off by the adviser AND the Bursar office, I am happy that this is the last time I have to register for classes. Now I just have to deal with reality sinking in…