Scheduling Classes

In one way, all colleges are the same. All ask you to come up with a schedule before you know a single thing about the college itself (physical layout of the campus or professors or requirements) or your own needs and desires. One other similarity seems to bind all colleges: students claim their academic advisers are useless.

In a spirit of avuncular advice (great word), here are a few scheduling basics (in no particular order).

Consider campus geography. Even a small campus such as Ashland University has classes in several different buildings. If you have a class in Bixler, there's no way you can get to over to Schar in less than ten minutes. A big place like Akron is, of course, much worse. To walk all the way from Olin to Polsky takes a minimum of 25 minutes (assuming that you're in good physical shape and hit the traffic lights right). The moral of the story: when you make your summer campus visit, walk the place and time yourself. Don't schedule things back-to-back unless they are in the same building.

Eight o'clocks. Recently I read a study which claimed that the older adolescent brain doesn't have the same circadian rhythm as an adult brain—and that "older adolescent" extends to 22 years old. This means that the college freshman's body wants to sleep from 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. Nobody has told school administrators this one, so a LOT of freshman classes are scheduled for 8 a.m. (Sometimes even earlier!) Do your best to avoid these, even if you think you're an early bird. If you're stuck with eight o'clock classes, work really hard to be awake for them: allow at least 90 minutes for shower, food, and commute.

Speaking of commuting: If you've never driven in a rush hour, you don't realize that it takes twice as long to get there during a "rush." Most larger cities calm down by 9 a.m. and begin to get intense again around 4, so work around that schedule if you can.

What to take #1: Some courses are pretty much required for everyone (Freshman English is a good example). Others are pretty much required for everyone in a particular field (Engineers should just plan on taking calculus). You might as well study the college catalog and figure out what these "everyone" courses are and work on them from the beginning. You don't want to get caught at the end of your sophomore year needing basic courses so you can proceed.

What to take #2: "Prerequisite" means that you can't take course number two until you pass number one. You need to take these things seriously because the college will. Keep track of the courses you've taken and the requirements for your curriculum. You don't want to arrive at the end of four years and learn that you really needed a sophomore literature course.

What to take #3: It's a good idea to do a bit of detective work. There's nothing wrong with asking people whether they liked Professor Jones (but be aware that a lousy student will tell you that he hated everyone). There's certainly nothing wrong with visiting Professor Jones during his office hours and asking him what his course will be like next semester. When someone says that Professor Jones was a "good professor," ask what "good" means. Easy? Interesting? Thought-provoking?

When to schedule things. ASAP. Classes fill up. As soon as the computer will let you register, do it!