Who do I ask?

[Roccoriel]

I am just able to register for classes, and while this is super exciting, I have no idea what I should register for as this fall will be my first semester. I received an email from the university which told me to contact my department secretary to find out, but my department has no secretary and the admin I contacted yesterday morning hasn't gotten back to me. i plan on giving her another day, but if she doesn't get back, should I contact my adviser? I have seen several posts here saying that advisers sometimes don't know which courses one should take, and i don't want to bother mine necessarily, but I do need to register! There are two required courses, so i assume I should register for those, but I need one or two courses in addition.

Thanks!

[MoJingly]

Absolutely, contact your advisor. That's what they are for. If they don't have the answer, hopefully they can put you in contact with somebody who does. Good luck!

[robot_hamster]

If your adviser doesn't know, then they will most likely know who does. Each school does stuff differently.

[rising_star]

Honestly, I've never registered for classes as an incoming grad student before August. At both my MA and PhD programs, part of orientation was sitting down with your advisor, the DGS, and the grad program secretary to work out a course schedule for the fall and spring. After that, the secretary registered us for classes (PhD program) or we were cleared to go online and register ourselves (MA program).

Sure, you can ask your advisor. But, grad classes rarely fill up and, when they do, professors typically let interested grad students enroll anyway. So I guess I'm not sure what the rush to register is. Just because you can doesn't mean you need to. In fact, most of the students in my current program and in my MA program only registered for one fall class in the spring and then figured the rest out in August as school started.

[GardeningGrad]

I was just wondering the same thing! I am drooling over possible classes to take, and I'm having flashbacks to freshman year of college... classes filling up, being on the bottom of the totem pole, etc. It will be delightful to have guidance and a bit of flexibility for when I register for classes!

[Eigen]

For our department, we had an orientation session the week before classes started... And we didn't register for classes until after we'd been through orientation, and met with our advisor in person. Most of the programs in my discipline have entrance exams, and you register for classes based on the results of those exams.

Basically, we ended up registering in August, the day before classes started.

For most programs, there shouldn't be any worry of classes filling up, so there's no rush to register. Heck, I've forgotten sometimes until a few weeks into the semester to actually register for the class I'm in!

In your department, if you can't figure out who else to ask, I'd go straight to the department chair, and ask them what the proper procedure is. But really, give the department admin a bit longer to get back to you- people are in and out a lot more in the summer.

[UnlikelyGrad]

My first year, I registered on orientation day. To tell the honest truth, my advisor wasn't much help (admittedly, she's in charge of grad admissions in the department, and was trying to make sure everyone was where they needed to be). She told me to ask a second-year student in the same program, who turned out to be very helpful (and is still a good friend).

[rainy_day]

Your adviosr is definitely the best person to talk with in this sitaution. I would recommend making a tentative schedule first, based on the classes that you are most interested in, and then contact your advisor for, well, advice.

[studentaffairsgrad]

My program has us register at orientation as well. We all get automatically enrolled into the same 3 classes anyways, so not much to do for me!

Don't be shy about contacting your adviser though...I asked mine about the process which is how I found out we do it at orientation.

[Roccoriel]

Okay, thanks everyone, less confused (and worried!) now. It seems there is no rush in most cases.

The admin I contacted replied that the dept. sends out a packet on the course offerings, and if I have any questions from there, I can contact my adviser. So I can just chill out until I get the packet