Pieces of BGSU

I woke up at a quarter to seven yesterday morning to compete with other students for the perfect schedule. I had a master plan. I was desperate enough to wake up before the sun and any person in their right mind to secure that plan. Why? Mainly, I don’t want to end up that sixth-year senior who forgot to fulfill her natural sciences requirement, and I don’t particularly want to be stuck taking an 8 a.m. jogging class. You get the point. So, with this in mind, I set my alarm sharply for 6:45, rolled out of bed, and experienced the chaos that is class scheduling. 

 
Currently, my fall schedule is a mess. It tests my sanity. I have late classes all nights of the week, barring Friday, and a field experience for an education class has me walking to a local school in the mornings. I live for weekends. When I heard that it was almost time to schedule classes for spring semester, I was pretty excited. I pulled out some graph paper, launched the online schedule of classes and designed a plan—colored it, labeled it, and everything. I can’t say for sure until the reading lists come out, but I’m feeling confident I will love every last class. As it turns out, there are some things that are worth waking up early for. 
 
When picking out classes this time, I stayed realistic. I asked myself questions like “Am I really going to get up for an 8:00 class?” or “Sure, a Zumba class sounds fun—but where is that in my degree audit report?” By the way, if you have no idea what I mean by a degree audit report, please meet with your counselor. Further, I reminded myself of all of the things I hate: very late classes, very early classes, classes on opposite ends of campus that are spaced five minutes apart. Realism is the way to go. 
 
Talking to other students, I realized that scheduling for spring semester did not go smoothly for everyone. A couple friends woke up at seven and were just minutes too late. They signed on to find that one or two of the classes they’d wanted had formed a wait list. Others missed out when they confused their scheduling dates. One ran into a problem with prerequisites.  Scheduling can be catastrophic. This is college, after all. We face catastrophes regularly. If you have not scheduled your classes yet, whether you’ve forgotten or your appointment time has not come up yet, I would suggest you form a plan. Great classes are the first to go.  Don’t be stuck choosing from left-over gym electives.