As the Spring semester winds down, students are getting ready to make their class schedule for Fall 2021. Students can already look at the courses that will be offered by going to the University course information page. Moreover, the University has announced that academic advising will begin on Monday, April 5 and registration will start on Monday, April 12. The registrar’s office advises that students research major requirements and core curriculum requirements when they plan their schedule. Additionally, they can meet their academic advisors to review their progress report and determine what classes they must take. 

The new version of BannerWeb offers a convenient feature for students juggling complicated schedules. BannerWeb now allows users to see their courses of interest in calendar view. Thus, the program can create multiple schedule layouts to help students decide what classes and times are ideal. Puja Velani ’24, a student who balances labs, lectures and recitations said, “I think it will be a lot easier to choose classes because of the new schedule feature.”

“You can build up to five tentative schedules ahead of registration,” Associate Registrar Melissa Weber said. The new version of BannerWeb will allow students to load their whole schedule at once when they are registering for classes, allowing students to seamlessly register for classes, “rather than having to enter all the CRNs again individually.” Students hope, these new features will take some of the stress out of the course selection process. Tom McKillop ’23 commented “I know in the past it is sometimes a race to get all of them in before the classes fill up, so if it helps that I would say it is a useful tool.”

As for remote and in-person learning, the conditions of classes will depend on the progress of the pandemic. While the administration is hopeful that students and faculty will be able to attend classes in person, University administration will have to respond to the COVID-19 situation at the time. As a precautionary measure, the university will maintain the 30-minute gap of time in between classes. This will allow for airflow and less congestion in hallways.