Hannah Hepler was relieved. Alannah Owens was thankful it was over. Azurai Phillips was amazed at how easy the process was.

While registering for classes can bring stress to students twice a year, for seniors, the task has brought upon feelings of relief and even joy as they schedule for the last time.

On Tuesday, Nov. 7th and Wednesday, Nov. 8th, seniors registered for the spring semester; likely the last classes many will be taking as an undergraduate.

During the add and drop period on PointWeb, students may choose the classes they wish to reserve. Students have access to a faculty and academic advisor to aid with the scheduling process.

Students register on different dates depending on factors such as year and number of credits. Freshmen have not registered yet – they will be registering tomorrow and Friday.

Hannah Hepler, a senior psychology major, has taken 18 credits in past semesters, but in the spring she will be taking only 12.

“This year, being a senior and scheduling for my last semester at university, it was almost this really relieving and surreal moment.” Hepler said.

One of the classes she will be taking includes her senior thesis.

Dr. Robert McInerney, an Associate Professor of Psychology, as well as the faculty advisor for the psychology students, explains that the psychology seniors must write a 50-page thesis paper spanning over two semesters.

“My advice to students would be to keep your grade point average up and your stress level down,” McInerney said. “My feeling about it is students who are less stressed out…the byproduct of that is good academic stuff.”

He believes that this can be applied to all students and not just psychology students.

Like Hepler, Alannah Owens, a senior human resources management major will be taking four classes.

“I’m in honors so I’ve been kind of spoiled because we can register early,” Owens said. “Even though I schedule early, sometimes it was frustrating.”

Sometimes the classes that she would need would be full or some of her classes required prerequisites that she had to complete.

She talked to her advisor who helped map out the classes she needed as well as help out with any other scheduling issues she came across.

This semester, however, she did not have any issues registering for her classes.

“It’s finally over,” Owens said with a sigh of relief. “I had a slight enjoyment. It was exciting.”

Azurai Phillips, a senior English major, has had a similar experience to Hepler and Owens when scheduling for the spring.

“This was the easiest one I had ever done…” Phillips said. “During previous semesters it was very hard and extremely difficult. It always took a super long time… you might not get the classes that you need because it takes so long and it freezes up.”

In her first year, she went to the computer lab to find many who were dealing with the same issues as her.

“I was feeling stressed out as a freshman on campus so it was nice to know that other people were having the same problems as me,” Phillips said.

The Office of the Registrar changed the time students could begin adding courses from 8 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., the time the office opens. Phillips said this could have been one of the reasons it was easier to schedule classes.

Dr. Jonas Prida, Assistant Provost and Interim Registrar, did not have anything to do with the time change, but is glad with how the Registrar has been handling creating positive experiences for students.

“Ultimately what you want is for students to feel like they are getting served properly and that there are no problems,” Prida said.

At a conference, Prida heard a man make the observation that “the only thing that should be hard about university are classes.” This stuck with Prida – he believes that processes like registering for classes should be simple. 

“All of the mechanics of this should be easy,” Prida said. “The class should be really hard but the mechanics of how you exist here should not be.”