Notice
Ah, registration.
1)Registration is always an exciting time of year.
2)You realize that no matter how important your classes seem now, next semester all your effort will mean nothing and you'll have to start over with all new classes.
3)Unless of course you haven't put in *enough* effort, and you realize that next semester you're going to find yourself starting over with all the same classes.
4)That aside, you have to find a way to sign up for classes while still maintaining some kind of momentum in your current clasess.
5)This is often portrayed on television as a very frustrating endeavor. You know why?
6)BECAUSE IT IS!
7)And calling the stupid automated phone service to actually sign up is only one part of the frustration.
8)First you have to find classes and make them all work with each other so nothing overlaps.
9)Then you have to find your advisor.
10)This isn't always as easy as it sounds, since my university has an interesting policy of switching students from one advisor to another without telling the students.
11)This has happened to me three times, and every time they just gave me this wide-eyed look and said, "But didn't you get the letter we sent you?"
12)Yeah, right. The mail slot at the Registrar's office must empty directly into a recycling bin.
13)So then sometimes you get stuck with an advisor who actually thinks they should help you, instead of just handing over your RAC number and letting you go about your business.
14)I think I can handle picking classes myself, thank you very much.
15)Luckily, if you promise to do whatever they say, they usually give you your code and you can register for whatever you planned to do in the first place.
16)*Then* you call in.
17)On your thirtieth try during your designated hours, you might get this message instead of a busy signal: "You're caller number 54. Please hold on while the students ahead of you sign up, eat their lunch, chat with their friends, delete all their classes and enter new ones, have a cup of tea, and reprogram the system to only allow 53 more students to register."
18)Assuming the students weren't successful in their reprogramming, you eventually get to go.
19)Of course, then it turns out that two of the classes you wanted are already full and the third one has changed its time slot to conflict with your fourth class.
20)At this point you either hang up and go back to step one, or go on the internet for bomb-building instructions.
Run Away