Across campus, in dorm rooms and computer labs, students are hunching down at computer screens to complete that all-too important spring ritual — signing up for next year's classes.
While man will plan courses beforehand, have backups ready and ask for overrides, others avoid these more traditional methods, tiptoeing around the system to obtain the perfect class list.
"I had my sister pick up a high-level accounting class for me when she was a senior because I was worried I wasn't going to be able to take it in the semester I wanted to," advertising sophomore Jake Derrig said. "She just had a really early enrollment date, so she saved it for me. When my date came later, I luckily got it right when she dropped it. "
But don't whip out your cell phone just yet. It's not necessarily that easy.
"I've heard students try and save classes for other people and have it not work," Acting University Registrar Dugald McMillan said. "This system is lightning fast. Once you ask for a class, you get it right away. I've seen someone try to do that for a lab. Person A dropped the course and when B went to pick it up, it was gone."
The tactics for drafting a desirable schedule don't stop there.
"For classes that need a prerequisite, I know you can enroll for that prerequisite in the fall and pick up the class you want to take in the spring," general management sophomore Gordon Fredericks said. "I've heard this process works for ISS classes. If you enroll for an ISS 200-level course in the fall and an ISS 300-level in the spring, then drop the 200 later, the system can't necessarily catch what you've done."
McMillan said students should think twice before playing a schedule switch-a-roo.
"The idea of dropping prerequisites isn't practical," McMillan said. "It would let the successor stay on your schedule, but 99 percent of the time you're going to need that prerequisite in the future, so why would you put it off?"
McMillan also said that while using a computer to outsmart the system may sound appealing, the Web Enrollment System is sensitive and security enabled.
"The only thing a person might try is to generate, design or write a request generator that sits there while the student is out doing something else," McMillan said.
"By preprogramming key strokes, the computer asks the Web site every five minutes for the class the student needs."
This could pose other problems for the tech-savvy student.
"Telling it to do that every so often isn't smart because it does that even when the class is still taken up," McMillan said. "It is a sure way to get logged out, restricting someone from getting back in. Every time you enter the system, it counts you. Three bad times and you're locked out for the day."
If a computer program attempts to log a student in automatically, without the proper password for a PID, after the third try, it will not only lock that person's account for the rest of the day, but they will have to call the registrar's office to have them unlock the security for that particular person, McMillan said.
With the problems that could arise from attempting these methods, most students choose to simply stick to tradition.
"I usually have my classes planned out two months before I can enroll," economics junior Matthew Schumann said. "The only problems that occur are when there are classes I want fall in the same time period or if I need an override for a class.
"That's what advisers are there for. It all works itself out in the end."
