Priority Enrollment Rocks

When you to go a big, public university like mine (or any other UC campus), one of the biggest headaches you have to deal with is course enrollment; there are never enough spots in the most desirable courses at the most desirable times.

My high school touted its unique "modular" schedule and the freedom and responsibility of students to determine their own class schedules (teachers, classes, and times) at the beginning of each semester in "the Arena" as college preparatory measures, but the one and only truly "college preparatory" insight I gained from my experiences in high school was that any kind of priority enrollment was a very, very good thing.

Keeping that in mind, choosing UCSD, who offered me priority enrollment as one of the perks of the Chancellor's Scholarship, over all the other colleges last March was a no brainer.

Enrollment for Winter Quarter began on Wednesday, and the most stressful part of the registration process for me was having to take the extra step of contacting the political science department for clearance before enrolling in the freshman seminar I was interested in taking because I would have sophomore standing by the end of this quarter. After taking the five minutes to look up the department email address and to compose a message, I had clearance to enroll in the seminar less than twenty-four hours later.

No muss, no fuss - just how I like it!

EVNR 130: Environmental Issues - Social Sciences
POLI 30: Political Inquiry (A fancy way of saying "STATISTICS," ugh)
SIO 20: The Atmosphere
MCWP 50: Critical Writing - The Graphic Novel
POLI 87: Becoming Evil (Freshman Seminar)

With due dates for papers, midterms, and finals always "just around the corner" in the fast-paced quarter system, any removal of unnecessary stress is always more than welcome.

There are more important things to worry about in life, and learning to let go of the smaller things that could easily become overwhelming in the heat of the moment definitely helps me maintain a more balanced perspective on things!

My point? Priority enrollment is awesome, and definitely something high school seniors should keep in mind when making up their minds about which university to attend; what good is a university with extremely highly regarded faculty members and top programs if you have trouble getting into those classes in the first place? Of course, I am not saying the quality of a school's programs should be disregarded, but sometimes the differences between undergraduate programs at prestigious universities and some equally as good, but perhaps less well-known colleges are negligible. Finding a good balance is always key, and noteworthy advantages like priority enrollment could easily shift the scales in your favor.