By: Hailey Miller, Peak Associate

Ah, the sweet smell of course enrollment stress is in the air. The time has come to battle the Hunger Games of registration, “and may the odds be ever in your favour.” Tension rises as you step up to the podium that is your goSFU account, anxiously awaiting the course calendar that appears before your screen. You nervously anticipate any changing results of offered classes and times that may differ from when you last checked the schedule. 

We’re all too familiar with the stress that is enrollment season. The step-by-step process plays on repeat in our minds as the soundtrack to our forthcoming semester preparation, hyped on putting another dent in our degrees and prepared for the chaos that’s hiding around the corner. At least, as prepared as one can be for one of the most stressful times known to every university student’s academic endeavours. It’s not like everything comes down to this exact moment as the outcome of your entire degree depends on the fate that’s led by an intricate course selection. No pressure at all. Seriously, why do you even bother stressing? 

The university sends out their subscription list of emails denoting that course registration is upon us. “Check your enrollment appointment now!” screams through our screens in bold, red letters. The email obnoxiously grants each of us an individualized registration date and time with a large serving of disappointment, and a hefty scoop of anxiety as the cherry on top. As soon as the first warning email is sent out indicating that the course calendar has been published, we jump to it like wild animals ready to catch their prey. 

We’ve been preparing for this moment all semester, every semester. We are well-seasoned course enrollment connoisseurs, equipped to pry class sections out of each other’s course carts before our mouse even has the chance to click “select.” We interrogate and examine the course calendar meticulously, brushing over every detail of prerequisites, corequisites, course sections, scheduled times, and campus locations with a fine tooth comb. 

We plan and prepare, arrange and organize, and hypothesize and theorize every crucial detail that amounts to our near future . . . as if any of it really matters. All our plans come crashing down when our time has come to login with our individualized enrollment  appointments. By then, it’s too late. How vexing of the university to throw a curveball and completely rearrange the course calendar at the absolute last second? 

Of course, it’s always the classes we need that are never offered. That prereq. You’ve been waiting an entire year to take it, and now, it’s vanished into thin air, alongside the corequisite you need with another class. It, by the way, conflicts with another course because the scheduled time has changed . . . again! No point stressing about your upper division credits when the lower division prerequisites won’t be offered until right before you’re ready to graduate. Not to mention the fact that some courses are only offered once a year. As if administration would ever consider running a popular course that’s in high demand more frequently, because obviously that’s too much to ask.

If you’re lucky enough that your classes miraculously lineup and don’t conflict on one campus, they sure as hell will conflict with another. Side note, since each campus is in a completely different city, it takes a literal eternity to transit between them, so if you were considering taking two courses on two different campuses on the same day, don’t.

All you can do is let the chaos unfold and await the registration results that are about to ensue. So, good luck, and may the best enrollment appointment win.