Director enlightens students about advising

posted in: News | 0

Waitlists. Prerequisites. Business Office holds because of ignored account charges. These are some of the many things that students are at risk of during registration period.

It’s time for students to meet with their advisers, write out their game plan for classes, and pray that the classes aren’t full when their time comes. Luckily, thanks to some changes during this previous summer, registration should be much easier for the new students than in previous years.

For this year’s incoming freshmen, registration is a part of the summer planning before coming to college. This past summer, registration was less confusing and more informative thanks to a few date changes.

“For the past several years, the majority of students came to campus for one day, met with an adviser for half an hour, and that’s about it,” Advising Center Director Gretchen Potter said. “This summer we changed that. So we had students come on for registration over the course of 16 days. There was a workshop at the beginning that was kind of an overview of everything, and then they met with their advisor. The days were broken down kind of by areas of study, and there were different days for different workshops.”

This change was meant to allow freshmen to get more comfortable with BoxerOnline before the class selection is under their control.

Of course, there’s still some potential obstacles that all Pacific students need to know.

“You should have backup plans for the classes you want,” Potter said. “There are definitely popular classes or popular time slots, and waitlists and full classes are just a part of college life.”

Without backup classes, students are at risk of running into scheduling conflicts. Sophomore Brittany Finch has to deal with this right before fall semester.

“This past registration period I got waitlisted for a lot of classes, so I actually wasn’t a full-time student, unfortunately.” Finch said. “I got down to 11 credits, and it meant I lost my work study, so that was a bit unfortunate. But things got worked out.”

Students need to take at least 12 credits to count as a full-time student. Anything below this requires special permission, and risks a decrease in financial aid.

Luckily, Pacific is fairly flexible when it comes to full classes.

You definitely have to keep an eye on BoxerOnline, because classes change.” Finch said. “You can come in the first day of class with an add-drop form that you get from the registrar’s office and sometimes professors will let you in the full classes.”

Especially for returning students, it’s best to make sure that there aren’t any academic or account holds before their registration time.

“For all students, they should check to make sure that they don’t have any surprise holds on their account,” Potter said. “They should get an email about any hold, they get an but it’s usually a mass e-mail, and that’s very easy to ignore, or to not realize the importance of it at the time. Too often, [students] find out at 7:00 a.m. on their registration day that they have a hold, Ideally, you want to get it done before that.”

As long as students follow these tips, class selection should be a smooth process.

Sponsored

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *