College websites are sh!t.

[Coldkilla]

This school that I'm in continually pisses me off to the brink.

I get a letter in the mail that says "Register for Summer Classes!". So I figure, "Hey, why not take 1 class this summer, to relieve some of the pain and stress of having to take the hard class in conjunction with 3-4 other classes in the spring". So I head on down to the schools website, and enter the registration page. There's only a tab for Spring registration. Summer's were apparently closed! Next semester's classes (Spring) are all ready filled up too for the most part, (1-2 slots left for most classes) .

So I frantically start to decide what classes I want next semester, and how to best organize them to fit my daily routine. Now I'm running on 23 hours of no sleep at this point and am kind of angry that I'm having to do this now rather than later because of the low availablity of the classes I need to take next semester. So I'm jotting down all my possible class choices in the registration pages so I can see a consolidated list of possible class choices.

I head over to my last college to grab an unofficial transcript as to allow me to be sure that the classes I'm taking next semester fit into my major. For example, I need 6 Social Sciences. I went back to my last college to determine if what I took was a social science and how many credits I took, as to determine if I need to take a social science next semester. Well just as luck would have it, my login doesn't work. (The information is 100% right). I tried both IE and Firefox. It didn't work. Then after browsing the FAQ, apparently their website is DOWN every night from 12:00am to 6am. Great!

So then I head back to my current schools website, re-log in to reactive my inactive account. Now THIS website dies. I've got classes that need to be registered for, and theres only 1 slot left in a few of those classes. I've been up 23 hours, and now if I go to sleep, I can pretty much guarantee I wont get into that class because it would have been filled up. So I'm being forced to stay up against my will because of some goddamned college websites.

The funny thing is about all of this, I never received anything in the mail that even hinted towards upcoming registrations. So in summation:

1. Screwed out of summer school.
2. Screwed out of having a solid next semester schedule.

Has anyone else experienced with college registration/websites before? Every semester it seems like I'm the one out of the loop on everything, while others seem to have everything magically work out for them. But the second I get notified of SUMMER classes, SPRING classes are all ready almost filled 99% of the way!

 

[coldmeat]

You didn't get an email or even talk to anybody else that goes to your school? Even if I didn't get anything from the school I have friends that talk about school stuff all the time and I would eventually hear about it.

I have never had a problem with registration. Even if I do it with only an hour left, I usually end up with a decent schedule.

 

[JJChicken]

My lecturer once said enrollment was the most difficult part of university/college and if you can enrol succeasfully you are already half way through completing your degree/diploma.

 

[Coldkilla]

Originally posted by: Barack Obama
My lecturer once said enrollment was the most difficult part of university/college and if you can enrol succeasfully you are already half way through completing your degree/diploma.

hehe. Well coldmeat, the truth is: no I have not received an email, or anything in the mail about it. Nore did I hear any of my friends discussing registration. This was a shock to me. I was thinking only about sleep the last 8 hours or so... now I've got this on my plate.

 

[Kalmah]

I've had the same problem twice in a row with my school. They give us like a 4 hour window that we can register.. And apparently we are suppose to know about it by checking the calender on the website that is never updated enough to show registration times.

 

[theknight571]

[old fart]
When I registered for classes, we went from line to line, there was no fancy intraweb crapola. You waited 20 min in line only to find out the session you wanted was full.
[/old fart]

 

[Chris27]

Originally posted by: Barack Obama
My lecturer once said enrollment was the most difficult part of university/college and if you can enrol succeasfully you are already half way through completing your degree/diploma.

I wish

 

[FDF12389]

Yea I never register online anymore, my schools site has way too many problems.

 

[newb111]

Originally posted by: theknight571
[old fart]
When I registered for classes, we went from line to line, there was no fancy intraweb crapola. You waited 20 min in line only to find out the session you wanted was full.
[/old fart]

And the lines were uphill both ways. With snow. And mountain lions.

 

[legoman666]

Originally posted by: Coldkilla
Then after browsing the FAQ, apparently their website is DOWN every night from 12:00am to 6am. Great!

So is my college's class registration website. I go to University of Cincinnati. Their main website sucks complete ass; it's impossible to find what you're looking for. The registration sucks too. They have 1 website that has a list of all the classes, their section number, their call number, and how many free slots are open. But you can't register at that site, you have to go to a different one for that. Complete PITA to register for classes.

 

[Jeff7]

My university makes wonderful use of realtime databases, except that they don't make that information available to us.
The registration page that shows the available slots in courses is updated once a day, at 7:00am.. However, when you click Submit to register for a course, then it checks with a database that tracks the relevant information in realtime. Why they chose to have the registration page update the status only one time a day is a mystery to me.

And then there's the degree audit page, to check up on your course completions, GPA, and remaining requirements. It looks like it was originally written for a BBS system. The output is raw text, and apparently was formatted so that a programmer could understand it.

For scheduling, there is a utility to automatically create possible schedule combinations. It apparently wasn't done by the college though - an architectural engineering student created the site. He even programmed it to interface with the realtime course registration database.

Originally posted by: theknight571
[old fart]
When I registered for classes, we went from line to line, there was no fancy intraweb crapola. You waited 20 min in line only to find out the session you wanted was full.
[/old fart]

Well sure, but back then, there were only three courses: "Hunting with Stick," "Hunting with Stick and Rock," and "Fire: Friend or Foe?"

 

[Indolent]

If this isn't your first semester in college, shouldn't you have known registration was coming up eventually?

And I have a hard time believing your school doesn't send out anything regarding it...

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Originally posted by: Coldkilla
There's only a tab for Spring registration. Summer's were apparently closed! Next semester's classes (Spring)...

In what bizarre world does Summer come before Spring? Are you just skipping Winter semester entirely? Or have they not got around to teaching you seasons yet...

 

[Eeezee]

That sounds like less of a website problem and more of a user problem... you completely missed your registration opening and you're surprised that a lot of classes have filled up? You fail at college.

Others don't have these things "magically work out" for them, it only takes about 5-10 minutes of planning to know when your registration dates are (which are usually published months and sometimes years in advance) and what classes you need to take. If you know when registration opens (the rest of us do) then you can try to jump on the classes you need at the times you want to take them.

There's nothing magical about registration, you either fail at college or you don't.

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: Chris27

Originally posted by: Barack Obama
My lecturer once said enrollment was the most difficult part of university/college and if you can enrol succeasfully you are already half way through completing your degree/diploma.

I wish

It might apply to Family Studies majors...

 

[hdeck]

um, don't see why you should blame the school's website for you not paying attention to when your registration is.

 

[mugs]

Wait a second - you're complaining that you "have" to register now rather than later because all of the next semester classes (you said spring, I think you meant fall) are nearly full? Doesn't that mean registration has been open long enough for all of those people to register, meaning you should have registered BEFORE now? At my college registration was opened to seniors first, then juniors, then sophomores, then freshman. NO one waited longer than they had to to register, because classes fill up.

 

[pyonir]

Originally posted by: mugs
Wait a second - you're complaining that you "have" to register now rather than later because all of the next semester classes (you said spring, I think you meant fall) are nearly full? Doesn't that mean registration has been open long enough for all of those people to register, meaning you should have registered BEFORE now? At my college registration was opened to seniors first, then juniors, then sophomores, then freshman. NO one waited longer than they had to to register, because classes fill up.

I hope he meant fall..otherwise i have no fucking clue what he is talking about.

 

[Wreckem]

The college student is responsible for knowing when his/her registation period is. Its not the schools fault you suck at college. Registration happens EVERY year you shouldnt need to be told when it is.