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Choosing classes can be a little tricky! Though there are so many wonderful courses offered at Tufts, the logistics of choosing a class can be challenging, especially for freshmen. In this blog, I’ll go over some tips for course registration. 

If you know what your major is already, I recommend completing the major’s core courses first before the electives. There are a couple of reasons why. One, these courses provide a good, general idea of what your major/field of study will be like. In other words, it often provides a useful landscape of the major/field of study. Two, you can choose your major electives based on what interests you the most from the core courses to ‘specialize’ or learn deeper about a topic in your major. This can be particularly helpful if you wish to do a thesis or when you start looking for jobs! If you do not know what your major/interest is, talk to upperclassmen and see what some popular courses are. Taking these popular courses in combination with your distribution requirements will help you explore and complete the distribution requirements together. 

Next is to plan. plan. plan! Course registration dates are different based on your class year/whether you are an engineer or not, so make sure you know the registration date for you. Also, everyone is assigned a time slot to sign up: earlier times are better since courses are first come first serve. So, it’s good to have some backups in case the class you want fills up. You should definitely have some backups if you are a freshman or sophomore since seniors and juniors sign up first. It’s also a good idea to make sure to verify courses so you do not run into problems when trying to enroll during your sign-up time slot. For example, some courses require a prerequisite and if you do not have the specific prerequisites, you will not be able to enroll. If you end up on a waiting list, don’t worry! If you email the professor, they are flexible and will be able to add you to the course. But this is completely dependent on the professor!

I hope these tips are helpful! If you happen to not like a course that you're enrolled in, no worries! You can always drop before a certain date and enroll in another class! Happy course registration!