I sit in front of my computer screen once again; my course catalogue, my Post-its, loose-leaf papers and bits of pulled out hair lay scattered around me. Registration time is here…ugh.

Why is registering so difficult? Is it not as simple as choosing your courses and plopping the class numbers into the myNKU shopping cart and ‘check out’?

Not when you have work to schedule around your classes around. Not when you have an hour commute to factor into the equation. Definitely not when you need both of those courses that are only offered once – at the same time – before you can start getting further into your major and minor classes.

Northern Kentucky University needs to add more variety to its course selection.
It would be nice to see more flexibility when it comes to the courses NKU offers. The way NKU’s classes are offered now, a full time student has very few options when it comes to scheduling school around other aspects in his or her life.

To my knowledge, most three-hour classes that NKU offers take place from 6:15 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., or from 4:45 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. It would make things so much easier if we were offered more block-scheduled classes throughout the day. That way, a student can get all of his or her classes into just a couple of days. Also, it gives them flexibility to arrange their coursework around more than just the offered Monday-Wednesday option or the Tuesday-Thursday option.

Personally, I like the three-hour courses much better, anyway. I like having just the one class per week instead of two or three. I feel like the class is much more productive and that I retain more if I’m focusing for an extended period of time on one subject. The only problem with the these classes is that they run so late. Even though they are much more productive, they aren’t convenient at all. I live so far away that it is very late before I get home, and, because of the late hour, I start lagging halfway through the class.

Even if a student wanted to take both of the three-hour night classes, it is not possible. They overlap so much that you have to choose between which you take, and if your daytime classes interfere, you may be forced to settle for the later one.

Another issue with the registration drama is that oftentimes, there are not enough sections. Especially when the classes are for those in the upper levels, there are more students vying for the course than there are seats. If a student isn’t able to take the course, they may get shoved back an entire semester. This makes things difficult when students get close to graduation.

Being a third-year NKU student, I can definitely attest that NKU’s course variety has improved. I still think we have a long way to go, however.

I dream of a day when registering is no longer a headache.