One of the most stressful parts of college is registering for courses. Especially at big universities, course registration is often regarded as a competition akin to the Hunger Games, and the ability to snatch a spot in a class is valuable. At Amherst, the course registration process is much less dire, especially because of our small school and class sizes.
First of all, before the beginning of the first round of registration, there’s usually a requirement to meet with one’s academic advisor to discuss courses for the upcoming semester. For first-years, they usually have an assigned advisor based on their expressed interests. For example, my first-year advisor was Professor Hastie, who works in the Film and Media Studies department. However, once people declare a major, they usually have an advisor who works in their major department. Double majors have two advisors to meet with during this time.
Once students meet with their advisor, the advisor usually approves the list of courses for students to register. Then, during the first round of registration, people can register for their top 4 courses. This round of registration isn’t first-come first-serve, and there’s usually no limit to how many students can register for a course. This is because the following week after registration is roster management week when professors go through the list of students registered for their courses and make decisions about their course cap number, usually around 30 for large classes and as small as 15 for some classes. Professors make their decisions based on major and seniority as well as expressed interest. Many students tend to email the professors for the courses they really want to take to demonstrate their strong interest, and this usually guarantees a spot for registration.
Once roster management has happened, there’s a second week of registration in which students can adjust the classes they registered for, especially if they got dropped from an overenrolled class. However, there’s still a chance to get back into overenrolled classes. I actually experienced this when registering for classes this upcoming semester, but I solved it by going to the professor’s office hours to explain why I needed to take the course to fulfill my major requirements, and I was added back to the class, even though it’s overenrolled. This shows how Amherst’s small faculty-to-student ratio makes the course registration process much less stressful than it is at bigger universities.