Yesterday was our registration battle. I was well prepared. Set my mobile alarm to wake me up at 4:30, half an hour before the battle. You are probably wondering why do I call it a battle??? Because it's a battle. The registration is electronic ( thank god) and starts at 5 am. It's a battle cuz seconds make difference and could ruin your whole schedule. The day before, I memorized the courses codes, so that when registering and typing the code I don't waste seconds looking at the papers around me. The registration starts at 5:00, I succeeded to get some courses and when entering the code at 5:08 it says (this section is full, try another section) I entered another section, which I put in plan B. But this way, I'm gonna have 5 hours of continuous lectures. I was comfortable anyway, cuz deep inside I knew I'll get that math section I wanted, because I know the math people trick.
By 5:20 all sections were almost full. By 6:00 zeros were the remaining seats. Went to complete my sleep. Got up again at 9:00 and by 9:30 I was online ready to play the add and drop game ( I love this game. It's so much funnn). I was waiting for the trick. The math people trick is that they wait until all the sections are completely full, then they get requests to add more seats so they add 5 seats to each section. I was waiting for that moment and it didn't come until 12. I quickly dropped the former and I added the one I awaited, told my friends to add and in seconds it was full again.
I won the battle. I got what I wanted and it was a miracle when I got a department course that was registered by students the day before. In the first time of my life I experienced how seconds make differences.
It was a victory.
The electronic registration system at SQU facilitated the whole registration thing for the students, instead of standing in queues for hours and getting irritated and annoyed. I experienced that in the first semester when we ( people who passed the exist test and started credits immediately) had to register manually at the deanship of admissions and registration, standing in the queue for hours and when its my turn the sections I wanted were already full. And I heard the experience of manual registration from other colleges' students, and how bothering is that.
(Though this registration system had some errors, which caused problems to some students and made them miss some courses or mixed up their schedules.)
Switching to electronic transactions is what we need. The population is increasing and the style of life doesn't bear to waste time in standing in queues for hours.In Oman we have many successful experiences like Higher Education Admissions Center (received an award for the quality of the service it provides) and we are hoping for more.
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3 comments:
Wow. This sounds like a serious challenge. It is very interesting to hear about how the students deal with it from their side.
Excellent post!
I agree. I did not fully understand the process, but great work in keeping to so exiting. Didn't know there was such competition in SQU !!
lol.
This is exactly what I go through every semester. Since the system in SQU is an American system, we also have the same exact system. But the only difference is that we get a "pre-registration" period. For examples, for this Fall semester, I had already pre-registered for the classes since last April, in the second semester of last year. For the coming Spring semester, I will pre-register in mid-November, a month and a half before the actual semester. Pre-registration is for those students whom are currently enrolled in the university. They get the privilege of registering to the classes and sections they desire, FIRST. Then, after all the returning students have already registered a couple of months ago, the new students come to register and find some of the sections already full or already occupied! :-D
In our system, not everyone registers at the same time. It depends on the alphabetical order of your last name, and your classification in the university (first year, second year, third year, etc..). This is both good and bad. It's good because the system does not get overloaded in the process of registering and everything runs smoothly. It's bad because sometimes it's unfair. What if your last name began with the letter Z and you are a first year student? You will be the LAST one in university to register, when everyone already registered.
Anyhow, I just want to point out that I go through the same battle you go through every single semester, lol. And yeah, the add and drop game is fun! :P
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