Katherine Torok

by Katherine Torok on April 4, 2019

by Joshua Chlebowski ’21

Opinion Staff

The season of course registration is upon us, inspiring a flurry of activity amongst the students of Providence College. With all of the course requirements that need to be met, schedules are being assembled with the utmost care.

The anxieties plaguing students arise not only out of trying to create a schedule that fits their needs, but also from the process of registering for courses.

There have certainly been recent positive additions to the registration process, such as the development of the “Schedule Planner” tool, which helps students visualize any conflicts among their desired courses itself.

There is no doubt that this program has helped many students to add their intended course selections to their registration cart smoothly, eliminating mistakes that may prove problematic at a later point.

This is not to say that the registration process is without its flaws, though. One major concern and struggle for students is the time when course registration begins, at the early hour of 7:30 a.m.

Students set numerous alarms in order to get up in time, make sure they are connected to PC Secure and/or travel to a computer lab so their requests are processed a fraction of a second faster than those registering from the comfort of their dorm rooms.

Since the earliest starting time for an undergraduate class on campus is 8:30 a.m., students that are registered with no issue find themselves with an extra hour on their hands. Sure, they could visit Raymond Dining Hall for an early breakfast, but then what?

Seeing as 8:30 a.m. classes are often a struggle for students, having something as important as course registration beginning an hour earlier stymies the mind.

For those students who encounter difficulties registering for their courses, this extra hour may prove to be beneficial, but even then, the stress of not getting into a class coupled with the likely loss of sleep seems to outweigh this potential positive.

Although no student has a class starting at 7:30 a.m., this does not ease the difficulty with which many students still struggle to wake up on time for registration.

One could argue that students are not required to register at 7:30 a.m. since the registration period ends at 11:59 p.m. on the same day. However, this argument would ignore the fact that many courses are competitive and difficult to get into, particularly when it comes to those classes which fulfill the core requirements of the College.

The week of registration for the next semester’s classes is a significant point in each semester, which entails meeting with advisors, reading degree audits, scouring the course catalog for classes, and ultimately waking up to register for them.

Keeping in mind that this occurs in the midst of current coursework in addition to the millions of other concerns students have, there must be some way to minimize the stress that stems from registration.

Whether it is moving registration times back or finding another way to run course registration, there is little doubt that the student populace would be greatly appreciative of some update to the system of class selection here at PC.