Coming into registration I was terrified that I would be stuck with unnecessary classes next semester. I had heard horror stories from fellow Clarkies about the site crashing right as they went to submit their courses or being stuck with courses they didn’t want because the classes filled before their page even loaded. After getting advice on how to avoid these misfortunes I decided to take every step necessary to get all the classes I wanted. I read Kelly’s How to Survive Registration article and set my game plan. I felt as ready as Tom Brady on the day of the Super Bowl.
Boy I was wrong. I woke up the morning of registration more tired than I had been in weeks and, thanks to living in a dorm, I felt like I had come down with the Black Plague. Somehow my roommate got me to get out of bed to get to Starbucks and by 7:15 a.m. my two friends and I were on our way to pumpkin spice lattes and free wifi to struggle our way through registration. As soon as we got there though I realized I had forgotten my wallet—the first mistake of registration.
By 7:55 a.m. we all had the look of anticipation like that of Katniss Everdeen before starting the Hunger Games. All of us were on the site anxiously awaiting for 8 a.m. to hit—my roommate even had a countdown going. The second it was time we all clicked to begin registering; second mistake. It was extremely anticlimactic. We clicked and then we sat for a couple of minutes waiting for it to load. Impatient as we were, we refreshed and tried again. When the first person got onto the page there was a cry of happiness across the coffee shop. However, the bad part was it wasn’t even one of us who got through; it was a fellow Clarkie at a different table.
Eventually the site gave way and my roommate and I got on, leaving the third girl in our party to wait. I typed in all my CRNs and willed it to work. I got into three of my four top classes immediately, the fourth class wouldn’t let me in because it said that I hadn’t taken the placement test even though I had. Frustrated as ever I decided to email the professor and find a different course in the meantime. As I was picking my final course, my third friend finally was able to log in only to find that all but one of her top choices was full.
Finally all of us had registered, though each slightly irked at the outcome of the morning. We closed our laptops and looked back on the registration process. The rumors other Clarkies had told us weren’t rumors anymore because we had experienced the terror for ourselves. This game plan will become a tradition after four more years of the pain we call registration. I genuinely don’t know how I survived registration. It’s probably because no one wants to take Biology and Chemistry second semester unless they have to. Though I did make it through my first real registration day, I have no idea how I’m supposed to survive the rest of the semester.