The Ultimate Guide to Course Registration

Hi everybody!

I hope everyone is having a good week and life is going well. Midterms went well too hopefully? I had an exam this morning (ew I know, who puts exams on Saturdays??). So now, I'm procrastinating again...but like hey, I was productive earlier so I get to blog now. It's all about the balance am I right?

Alright, now we're gonna get down to business. The emails notifying you to get signed up for pre-registration meetings went out already and if you haven't signed up for a session, do it now! Take a quick break from reading this and just sign up. I promise it'll only take a couple of minutes.

All signed up? Okay, we're going to continue then. PSEO gets a bad rep for not being as helpful as the advertising claims. Online, people always complain that PSEO credits don't always contribute to shaving off time in "real college" and it can be true. If you just walk in there and take whatever courses you want, chances are few will actually contribute to your major. I'm not saying that you shouldn't take courses you enjoy, because that's definitely important, but I am saying you should be smart about it. So what does that mean exactly? Below are a couple of things that I think you should keep in mind:

1. What are you majoring in? Okay, this is the thing. Most of you probably only have a vague idea of what you will be going to college for. I wish we didn't have to decide, but this part is important in that you can't pick courses that will contribute to your major if you don't have a general idea of what you will be going for. It doesn't have to be an unwavering plan, but you should narrow it down to at least what kind of "college" within the university you want to attend. (Everything in this guide will be based off the U of M's website and resources, so if you're using this for a different university, then readjust accordingly :). For example, maybe you don't know what you want to do but you love math and science so you'll probably attend CSE. Or maybe you want to be a doctor, you'll probably go to CBS.
2. Use APAS. Alright, so now we've got the college down. There is a tool in MyU under the Academics tab that allows you to run a "What-If" report for any major or minor. You pick the campus, then the college, and then a major/minor. It then runs a report on, if you were to begin the degree right now, which of your credits you've earned so far will fit in where and what more you need to finish the degree. It's actually my favorite planning tool. If you don't know exactly what you want to major in, then look around a bit and see if there are any overlapping courses. For example, most if not all the engineering degrees require all four levels of calculus.
3. Liberal Education Requirements. If you got this far and still nothing, then this part is important for you. If you attend the U, there is a list of lib eds that all undergrads have to take, regardless of major. If you use APAS, it shows up on there and you can plan specifically, but if you want to plan more generally, just go into Schedule Builder and there's a dedicated tab on the left side just for these courses. There are some classes that fulfill more than one lib ed requirement; those are what I would recommend if you want try to save time. These are especially useful because many of them also overlap with high school graduation requirements that you have to do anyway. *Kill two birds with one stone people*
4. Speak to your advisers! This last tip is mainly for the people who are really sure about what they want to do. For example, I am sure I want to do Chem.E. (or at least mostly sure...). There are few who know more about course registration than the advisers and if you just email them and say that you want to pursue _____ , what course of classes would get me the most ahead, they can help you plan. This is the course of action that I followed and shout-out to Scott (an awesome dude who is always uber helpful) for helping me skip (hopefully) a full year ahead.

So now you know. Keep these tips in mind as you start picking courses for next semester. 

In terms of course load, it is generally recommended that the first couple of semesters you stay around 12ish credits, but I find 12 to be pretty light. I am taking 15 right now and it's brisk but in a good way (especially with college applications *cries*). You just have to know yourself. Of course, 12 credits of two lab sciences and a math is very different from 12 credits of 3 lib eds as well. Although, take it from someone who is doing it right now, two lab sciences is a lot to juggle at the same time if you ever want to go home because you will spend so much time in lab it's not even funny.

There is also a brief catalog on the PSEOSA website that contains reviews of courses that other PSEO kids have taken before if you want to get a feel for the workload.

*SHARE this article!* Help out a friend and share this article so that they can benefit from these tips too. I know I would've loved to have known this kind of information last year.

If you guys have any questions, email the PSEO board at pseosa@umn.edu and we'll make sure it gets addressed in a post soon!

~Tempest

P.S. Here is your complimentary meme :)