Choosing courses can be extremely overwhelming. It took me over 2 months to choose what I want to take. If you are like me who is very fussy with my courses… I suggest you check out what courses are available weeks before your registration date and create different sets of worklists. This is because it would make it easier for you to register instantly when your registration is open. Sometimes courses might be full and this might mean that you will have to find another time or even another course. That is why making different worklists is a good idea.

(If you need help… I will definitely help you! Please read the bottom of this post)

GOOD TIPS:
– Please please check out the arts requirements. Even Arts students have REQUIREMENTS! If you don’t get it, I’ll be explaining that in another post… CLICK HERE :)

Arts Requirement <– Please click on the link

– Please check out what majors/ minors you are planning on doing, and maybe just maybe take some courses that are required to make your second year less stressful.

Degrees and all

– Save worklists (plural) to make it easier for you to register when your registration opens… I can’t stress enough how important that is!
Some Good Reasons

• Easier to register when your registration opens (how many times did I say this?)
• What if? One of the courses you chose the night before suddenly became full and you don’t have an alternative (another worklist)? I was extremely disappointed when I found out that the only ENGL 100 class I wanted to take was full (they were doing POE (I cannot stress how cool he is!), Dracula, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and etc.) Oh yes! Most of the ENGL class do different sets of literature, so be sure to check which texts you would be doing and change your class if you don’t like them! Don’t come running to me if you end up crying because your class is doing something like… Like Water for Chocolate (I did that in IB English) and all the other ENGL 100 is full, I would be like “I told you so!”
• Also worklists can show you whether the courses you will be taking will clash

– If classes are one hour long, USUALLY they only last for 50 minutes, the same goes for the one and an half hour classes. But sometimes classes might run overtime… What I’m trying to say is that you can put classes right after another class, you do not need to have an half an hour space between. But you should definitely check whether your classes are nearby. I advise you to use Google Map to check how long it takes to walk to your next class. Obviously if it takes more than 10 minutes, you might want to reconsider your class. Or you might not mind being late, if so then do as you please (But personally I wouldn’t as I hate being late).

So… More about me… Read if you want… It might be useful!

Originally I decided on majoring in Psychology and minoring in Anthropology. Fortunately I took IB Psychology HL, this means that chances are that I would be able to get credits for PSYC 100 (meaning that I don’t have to take it). Unfortunately, my registration date was on June, and was around a week before the IB results came out. I didn’t want to edge my bet on that I would get credits for PSYC 100 so I registered for PSYC 100 as I could always drop that later. TIP: EVEN IF YOU ARE SURE THAT YOU WOULD GET CREDITS FOR PSYC 100 YOU SHOULD STILL REGISTER PSYC 100! THIS GOES FOR OTHER COURSES AS WELL! I did this because Psyc 100 tends to get full within a week or so. After my results came out, I was able to drop PSYC 100 :)

The second problem that made me take over 2 months to choose courses is that I didn’t expect to get a 7 for IB History HL. Weirdly enough I was predicted to get a 5, this helped me decide to not major in History, and getting a 7 just added more confusion as I could not decide whether to major in History or not. What does this got to do with first year registering? Well, I don’t know about all of you guys, but I would like to take some of my required courses for my major in my first year instead of cramming everything else for the next few years. In the end, I decided to stay with Psychology and now I’m stuck choosing between minoring in Anthropology or History (I’m still deciding!).

Another problem I had is that since I already have credits for PSYC 100, I wanted to take other Psychology courses. But, all of the other REQUIRED courses required me to be in second year standing, majoring in Psychology (you can declare that in your second year) or have taken PSYC 217 and PSYC 218 (which requires me to be in second year standing), basically my problem is that I’m not in second year standing. I didn’t want to be stuck with one year without Psychology (I didn’t want to forget everything I have learned from IB Psychology), so I took PSYC 208, which is not required.

– I’m kind of zoned out right now… But I will continue adding to this post when I collect my thoughts ;)

Haha. I know I’m writing this a bit late now ;) I hope to the future first years… Reading this would be useful!

PS. You could always ask me questions and all… Just spam me with comments or add me on fb :)