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Academics, Student Life

Registration begins today, as do students’ frustrations

Posted by Meghan Mangrum ⋅ March 26, 2012 ⋅ Leave a Comment

Filed Under OASIS, office of the registrar, registration

Katherine Fleck looking through classes on OASIS' class schedule search.

Registration: one of the most stressful times of the semester, second maybe only to finals week, began today for fall and summer classes. And so did students’ complaints.

For many students, registration appointment times are something to either agonize or rejoice over; the coveted spot – 7:55 a.m. today.

“Appointment time rewards people who excel academically,” said Ricky Boyd, assistant university registrar. This means that all undergraduates with at least 12 credits or more and a GPA higher than 3.75 were able to register this morning.

Yet registration time is not the only hurdle between students and their desired schedule. Students logging on to the university system, OASIS, where they register for classes, were greeted with blank, forever-loading pages or “503 Temporarily Unavailable” messages.

Oscar Merino, who is registering for his senior year and majoring in cell and molecular biology, has had early registration times since his freshman year because he is a member of the Honors College. Although registering early didn’t have an effect on the availability of his classes, he still found the process frustrating.

“It’s been very stressful,” Merino said. “This year has been horrible, much worse than before. I spent a whole hour refreshing the browser.”

According to Boyd, OASIS was simply one among many university systems, including DegreeWorks and TouchNet that were offline this morning.

“It wasn’t relevant to people starting to register,” Boyd said.

Regardless, registration is still stressful for many students. Katherine Fleck, a junior double majoring in history and American studies, has agonized over her schedule for weeks. Up until her registration time this morning, Fleck has debated between two schedules she created hypothetically for herself.

“Because I am in a smaller major, the class sizes are pretty well-designed to accommodate everyone,” Fleck said.

Still, she acknowledged that registration was stressful and cited troubles with OASIS as the culprit.

“It was extremely stressful due to the nature of OASIS and its constant server issues,” Fleck said. “USF needs to completely reevaluate how many students are able to register at one given time.”

Registration appointment times continue through April 16. For students with late registration times, common worries include whether classes they need to graduate will be available.

This is a common concern, according to Boyd, but the Office of the Registrar does not determine the type or amount of courses offered.

“We try to redirect complaints to the correct resources,” Boyd said. “We don’t cause all the problems, but we are grateful to be helpful in any way we can.”