How students deal with registration going wrong

From the dreaded blue square that symbolizes a class is full to the red X that indicates some ineligibility for a course, class registration can be a frustrating process for many students each semester. And it often leaves a question hanging over students' heads: 'What if I don't get the classes I need?'

Junior Jackie Blendermann, a public policy and political science double major, said her worst experience occurred when trying to register for online classes through the William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education.

Blendermann said before attempting to enroll, all of the courses had the positive green circle indicating they were still available for registration. But she said as soon as she hit the “enroll” button, every class was full — including each waitlist. 

After attempting to enroll in five more classes, Blendermann said she called the Friday Center, but received little help.

“It made me extremely frustrated and annoyed having to spend 45 minutes finding a new class when I had already spent two hours prior making sure my schedule worked, and I had all the classes I needed,” Blendermann said. “Basically there was no way to tell if a class was full or not, and it wasted a lot of unnecessary time.” 

Blendermann said she ended up not taking online courses that semester and suggested that other students should make sure they have backup classes in their shopping cart when it is time to register.

UNC senior Izzy Allardi, a chemistry and psychology major, said she was listed as a part-time student the spring of her sophomore year because she underloaded while recovering from multiple surgeries. Since then, she has not been allowed to register with other students of her same year because the University lists her as having fewer semesters.  

Allardi said registration for her is a hassle each semester due to this setback. 

“Based on the number of credit hours I came in with, I can still graduate on time despite the part-time semester, but now every semester I’ve had to beg professors to let me in classes and keep trying to get anything I need, rather than classes I want,” Allardi said. “At the end of this process this semester, I’m upset and hurt because I currently am waitlisted for classes I need in order to graduate in May.”

Kristopher West, the associate university registrar at UNC, said students can reach out to a multitude of people and resources — including advisers, professors, Tar Heel Tracker and the employees in the Office of the University Registrar. 

West’s best piece of advice for a smooth registration is to reach out proactively, make sure that certain setbacks, such as holds, are taken care of and to communicate with advisers so class needs for graduation can be planned.

“Most of the registration issues that we find, there is something that would have popped up way before the registration time,” West said. “Active preparation is very important when trying to register for the upcoming semester’s courses.”

For seniors, it can be particularly pressing to get into courses in order to graduate on time. 

Neha Korrapati, a May 2019 graduate, said getting enough courses as a computer science major to graduate on time is difficult. 

With the major growing fast and having limited spaces in its courses, even computer science majors struggle to enroll in major-specific classes. She said that one semester, she needed three courses to graduate on time, but only successfully enrolled in one during registration. Despite these challenges, she said was able to graduate with the help of advisers and professors. 

Successful class registration is really determined by what time a student is allowed to enroll, Korrapati said. 

“I was lucky my first few years and got early registration times, but once you get past about 12 p.m. on the first day, it’s hard to find classes,” Korrapati said. “I had later registration times junior and senior year and managed to make it work, but I had to do a lot of wait listing and emailing professors.”

Korrapati said UNC faculty and staff should try to help as much as they can on registration days, but she understands that it is difficult to accommodate everyone.

West said the registrar’s office and other campus faculty are here to help and that even if they cannot fix the situation entirely, they will provide some other alternative solution so students’ needs are met. 

“One thing I would caution students to never do is to never say anything,”  West said. “There are so many people on campus who it’s their life work to help students, and we all care about  the students. We have all been students ourselves, so I want students to speak up when they need help.”

@macyemeyer

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