As a junior, I should be better at choosing my classes by now. I really should. I’ve been through the process eight times: not remembering to check my registration time, looking it up later out of curiosity, promptly forgetting it, then some days later realizing with shock that my registration time started a few hours- or days- ago. I could obviously make more of an effort to remember; I could set an alarm or put a Post-it on my forehead a few days before, so everywhere I went people would say, “Uh, why do you have a Post-it about registration on your forehead?” As if I’d be able to forget my time after that.
I don’t do any of this though, because this method always works out for me. Since I sometimes fail to get into the most popular classes, I end up in classes that are less well known, but no less awesome. Apparently no one’s heard of Gender, Race, and the Holocaust, but it was one of the best classes I’ve taken at Northwestern. Same goes for History of Latino and Latina Studies, which was the kind of course college dreams are made of.
When I get finally around to choosing my classes, I just look around at different areas that interest me. You have no idea how many times I’ve clicked “Horticulture,” praying that this will be the quarter I get to wield a pair of shears and learn how to make a garden hedge look like a giraffe. This tactic hasn’t always worked in my favor, but it’s worth the gems that I’ve found and the friends I’ve made in in the process.