SBGradMag Stony Brook's Graduate Student Magazine

Back in the spring of 1996, I remember getting to choose my schedule of classes for the very first time. I was at the end of the eighth grade, getting ready for the monumental (it seemed) leap from middle school to high school. The ripples of excitement in the classroom were palpable, and I remember the guidance counselors coming to our classes and giving us little talks about how to choose classes wisely. Although there weren't all that many choices since so many subjects were required, such as English, math or one unfortunate semester of gym, many of the time slots were open to our heart's desires, ranging from Ceramics to Childhood Development, from Spanish to Sociology. Course listings were like menus where as long as you chose wisely, you could take whatever you wanted.

In college, the feeling of freedom only seemed magnified, as we dispensed with guidance counselors and registered for classes online with no one looking over our shoulders. Sure, you had to make sure you were progressing with your degree and taking all the required courses, but there was a lot of leeway, and we all looked forward to reading the class listings for the next semester as soon as they were posted, half way through the current semester.

Now, however, there is no joy or excitement at the thought of registering for next year's courses. Instead, all of us in the first year have been fretting for weeks—ever since the course listings were first rumored back in October, and then elaborated upon a couple of weeks ago. With last Monday's registration date fast upon us, discussions of what courses to take appeared to reach fever pitch within seconds of asking,

“What are you taking next semester?”

I never thought that registering for classes could be so difficult and plain-out unpleasant. With only three slots to fill each semester for four semesters, a delicate balancing act is necessarily engaged in. First, there are the usual disappointments. Some professors are on leave or simply not teaching any graduate courses. Others are retiring and there's no “point” to taking their courses, since you won't be able to work with them on a reading list or your dissertation anyway. Then there are the scheduling issues, causing many of us to bewail our TAing assignments that bar us from taking certain courses we are interested in. Next there are the practicalities of time and subject. Courses in Sociology, Philosophy or Hispanic Languages and Literatures don't start and end at the same times as English Literature courses, again cutting down the number of choices we have to work with. Some classes are offered at the same time. Foiled again! And of course, those of us with heavy theory course loads this semester are anxious not to commit the same mistake again, and (in vain) have searched and tried to sign up for courses that won't be all theory.

As such, we turn to our peers, perhaps people ahead of us in the program. We ask, “What is better: A class you take because of your interest in the subject or because of your interest in the professor?” “Which courses would you take?” “How do these courses fit in with my interests?”

Inevitably, the answers we hear are not the ones we are looking for. When the day of registration finally dawns, it is with resignation that we sign up for a combination of courses that somehow or other manages to balance the times we are on campus, the theoretical content of courses, and professors we would like to work with, not to mention requirements for various certificates and those of our own department.

It's no easy task, and now I'm glad that it's done.