As the calendar year hits April at St. John’s, it means one thing for many students: it is time to register for classes for the Fall semester.
With registration being done online, it makes it easy for students, since they can do their registration from home without the hassles of having to do it at school.
Most have a generally favorable view of the registration process as is. “It’s good, not too bad,” said Anthony Banno, a junior at St. John’s currently majoring in Criminal Justice who transferred from Nassau Community College last semester. “With the registration, I have no problems, but maybe they can offer better times. Sometimes you have to cram and you’d have to squeeze everything in.”
While registration may not offer the best choices for classes sometimes, it works better than the registration policies at some other schools, at least according to Banno. “[At Nassau Community College], there were no priority numbers; you met with a teacher and you picked your classes and what times you wanted them. You then handed in your choice of classes to the Registrar.
“You would get a printout of when the classes were offered and you had to pick from there,” he recalls. “It was more hectic at Nassau because you had to be there in person,”
While registering for classes at St. John’s sounds easy, it is not exactly the case for students majoring in Pharmacy. Students entering their second year had to choose their classes in “blocks.” The classes and professors were already picked for them. The student only has to pick his desired blocks and then submit them and hope he or she gets into their first choice.
“I like it because it saves me the hassle [of picking classes],” said Elsie Wong, a second year Pharmacy student. “But I know everyone else hates it because we don’t get to pick our professors and we get random blocks.”
It’s unclear how long St. John’s plans to implement two different registration processes. “The same school should have the same way of registration,” Banno said.
All in all, the registration process at St. John’s gets a bad rap. The process is intrinsically flawed, but the online procedures that go into registering for classes at St. John’s are as simple and as easy as possible.
