Registration may be over, but last week’s frenzy continues to be a source of frustration for many staff and students. To some extent this stress is unavoidable, but the staff attempts to make the challenging process less stressful. If students take advantage of their resources, registration can be an easier process.

Advisors are a primary resource for students during registration, and contact between student and advisor is required for a reason, said Ron Urban from the Registrar’s Office. As a whole the system works to get students out in four years. At Whitman, the success rate for on-time graduation is 92-93%.
“Advisors are good for formal and informal information. They can tell you what they know about teachers that you are thinking of taking classes from. They help put color to the black and white structure of the manual,” said Urban.
Ideally, students take advantage of the requirement for clearance, and use the opportunity to their benefit. Failing to contact advisors causes unnecessary frustration.
“Students who don’t get around to talking to their advisers until the last minute are
very frustrating,” said Andrea Dobson, head of the science department.
In these situations, both advisor and student are forced to operate under stressful time constraints.
When advisors fail to give clearance before a student’s registration time, the Registrar’s Office has a group of “super advisors” who can clear students in times of need.
In an attempt to decrease anxiety, registration changes can be made until the end of the semester, rather than having everything finalized on the day of registration. In the past, the college has operated by arena registration, which sent students around to different tables to interact with the teachers whose classes they would take. This was given up because online registration is more convenient for making later changes.
While seniors have the most to worry about in terms of getting all distributions done in time, first years are most inconvenienced when it comes to registration times.
Urban said, “Securing a favorable registration time is a critical part of registration. Times are assigned randomly every semester, so that no one is knowingly excluded or advantaged. We try to make sure people are not disadvantaged more than two semesters in a row. We want to be fair.”
The specific courses and teachers that students want are limited, and first years have a harder time getting into the classes that they want. The best way to get into desired classes is to be prepared and know what you want to take.
“I was really frustrated because I want to be sociology major, but I couldn’t take Intro to Sociology because I didn’t have an early enough time slot to get it. There are people in that class who don’t want to be sociology majors, but got in because they had a better time slot,” said first-year Alyssa Breetwor.
Finding classes at desirable times is also difficult. According to Urban, no other classes can be scheduled at the same time as Core and the time periods of 10, 11 and one are by far the most popular.
“The process of registration is a lot more complex now. It’s amazing it all works, there are so many places it could break down. It’s stressful for everyone and we are all happy when it’s over,” said Urban.