St. Lawrence University students signed up for Spring 2024 courses this past week. Similar to the last semester of registration, all students were assigned randomly into groups one through 11, which determined their window of time to choose courses each day. The goal of the system is to reduce the number of students on the registration website at the same time, which has caused the site to crash multiple times in recent years.
Associate Registrar Darrcy Matthews says the registration website can now handle the number of students in each wave of sign-ups. “We’ve taken a lot of time as the registration office to thoroughly test and make sure that the number of students that are in each wave assignment allows for the registration system to handle the load,” says Matthews. Her team members were confident because registration went well for students last semester.
A senior and student-athlete at SLU, Bella Amico ’24, says that the registration process made it difficult to find courses that fit her demanding alpine skiing schedule. “There are not many courses offered, and the timing of classes isn’t very diverse, which can be stressful when trying to fit in all my credits before graduation,” Amico says. Amico is a biomedical major applying to graduate school, so for her, registration is an added stress in her week.
Amico has experienced an improvement in the St. Lawrence registration process and believes that student-athletes often get priority at other colleges. “I think it’s important to have equal opportunity for everyone, but at the same time, we experience scheduling issues around practices and competitions more than other students, making it difficult to fulfill course credit requirements,” Amico states. Student-athletes do not get priority in registration, which causes a lot of extra anxiety on top of their athletic commitments.
Donatella Defazio ’26 has a unique position as a sophomore and engineering major planning on pursuing a dual-degree program offered at another liberal arts college. “I often look for courses that are cross-listed in fulfilling more than one requirement, as I have to fulfill both my engineering major requirements and the distribution requirements such as diversity and social science,” Defazio says. Finding cross-listed courses was a focus for many students.
While breaking registration into multiple waves fixes website capacity issues it can cause issues for students with prior commitments. Overall, SLU students feel that the changes to course registration worked but feel registration continues to bring a lot of stress.