Tips On Scheduling College Classes Like A Pro

For many college students including myself, spring break has come and gone. Now it’s time to buckle town and tackle the last 6-7 weeks or so of the semester. What this also means is that it’s almost that time again to sign up for next semester’s classes.

I sign up for my next fall semester’s classes starting this Thursday, so what better a time than to give some tips on how to schedule college classes like a pro.

So lets get on to the tips now, shall we?

Folks, this one’s a biggie. Before signing up for classes, it’s important to talk with your academic advisor about the classes you should be taking to make sure you’re still on the right track. Visiting your advisor is also a great way to plan ahead on future semesters as well, so that again, you can track your progress towards graduation. 

Pro tip: Try to schedule a meeting with your advisor earlier than normal, like a little before the scheduling process comes around. Otherwise if you wait until a day or so before you schedule, your advisor could be too overbooked with other students. Plus, making an appointment with your advisor before their peak busy times will ensure that you’re getting all the attention and focus that you need from your advisor.

Make sure you know ahead of time when your scheduling window opens. At my school, they post the exact date and time our scheduling windows open for scheduling classes about a month or so prior to when scheduling for classes starts. Scheduling windows are usually based on which grade you’re in (ie graduating seniors choose classes before freshman). It’s important to know exactly what classes you’re going to take ahead of time. At my school, if you don’t submit your next semester’s schedule when your scheduling window opens, some classes can then be full and you might miss out on classes you need to stay on track for graduation, the times you want for your classes, and/or miss out on getting the best professors. Don’t be the person who waits until the last minute and ends up falling behind!

Once you have an idea of what classes you’re going to take after planning ahead and visiting you’re advisor, it’s often helpful to ask around from friends or other people on campus for their input. If you know one of your friends is currently taking or has taken a class you plan to take next semester, it can be a good idea to ask them about how the professor is, about the work load, etc. If you don’t know of anyone to ask advice from about a class, you can also use ratemyprofessors.com and search your professor. I’ve found the site to be pretty helpful, and reading up on there about my future professors has made me feel a little more prepared in knowing what to expect from a certain class/professor when scheduling my classes. Asking around can save you from some unnecessary suffering in taking a harder-than-it-should-be elective or can get you excited about a great professor. Just remember to take advice about classes and professors with a grain of salt. Sometimes what other people think about a class isn’t necessarily the same experience you’ll have.

When scheduling classes, it’s important to be honest with yourself, especially when scheduling classes for certain times a day or days in the week. For example, are you a morning person or do you work in the afternoon or evenings? Or do you like being done with all of your school work by the evening? If the answer is yes to both of those, then maybe you’d rather schedule morning classes. Are you a late riser or study so late that you have difficult waking up early? Then maybe it would be better to schedule late afternoon/evening classes. Some other things to think about when scheduling your classes are when your extracurricular activities are, when you work if you have a job, and when you feel like you study the best. You might want to block these times out and work your class schedule around these times so that you can keep your other commitments as well. However, some classes are only offered during certain times and certain days of the week (especially as you enter into your major classes, which tend to be smaller in size). But for the class times you can choose, try to keep some of these things in mind!

Seriously. This is one of those things that many people forget about when scheduling classes. If you have classes that are very close together in time, such as back-to-back classes, try to make sure these classes are somewhat near each other on campus. Nothing is worse than having 10-15 minutes to sprint from one side of campus to another because your classes are too far apart. Sometimes you can’t help this, but if you can, try to avoid it!

Did you see that? Two exclamation points on this tip. That’s how important this one is. Sometimes when people schedule (looking at you last-semester me), they schedule back-to-back-to-back classes in huge time blocks usually so that a) they can get classes over with earlier or b) try to get all their classes on only 2-3 days so that they can have a couple of days a week or so free.

Why shouldn’t you do this?

Well for starters, you are probably going to hate yourself on the days where you have massive amounts of classes (especially if you do so in order to have no classes a couple of days a week). It’s nice to spread classes out a little bit so that you have time to prepare yourself for your next class, and not feel so swamped on certain days. However, like mentioned above, be honest with yourself. Taking too many classes in one day is not for me, but it could be different for you. BUT no matter whether you like to bulk classes into a couple days a week or like to spread them out a little bit, please do yourself a favor and make sure that you schedule yourself a lunch break. You’re going to need a little break during the day for lunch (brain food) and to get up from sitting for so long in lectures. I made this mistake this semester and trust me, it can be pretty painful to pay attention in class when you’re hungry or have been sitting in the same seat for what seems like hours on end.

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I hope some of these scheduling tips helped you guys! Oh and I’d just like to add that I tried to make these tips applicable to any college, so hopefully at least a couple of them are helpful to you or maybe serve as a reminders as the class scheduling process for next semester comes around.

What are some of your tips for scheduling classes in college?