We had an academic wine reception earlier today. Basically they serve all of the foreign students wine and give them a chance to meet professors from (almost) all of the departments. I was talking with the Modern History professor about the available courses when I received devastating news: The Dictatorship course is filled and has a large wait list. Unlike at Colgate, where we can add our names to the waitlist and then bug the professor until he decides to let us in, registration here is much more passive. I just have to waitlist myself for the class and wait to hear back. I guess I will be spending the weekend with my fingers crossed.
Tomorrow we have assigned times to go to the library to meet with our advisors. Your advisor is the person from the department you want to take a class in who is essentially the gate keeper. he will tell you if the class is inappropriate for you to take or if it is full. The classes I got pre-approved by the PCON department at Colgate are all full. Ugh.
I am now playing the contigency game. I am trying to figure out which courses I can take to receive PCON credit and also end up with 4 Colgate credit. In a complicated turn of events, unless I take a 30-credit divinity or philosophy class here, I will leave the semester with only 3 Colgate credits. Understandably, this is not cool. Paying more than a regular Colgate semester to receive less credits seems not right. But there is nothing I can do. I am trying to get into a divinity class called Theology of the Musical. It is 30-credits and would solve half of the credit problem.
I have been trying to make a list of possible history or international relations classes that could count for my PCON major. I am also trying to figure out which classes don't meet Friday afternoons or Monday mornings. They have a lot less hours of actual class time here, and I would love to be able to have long weekends to travel. Unfortunately, the terrorism class I wanted to take meets from 2-4 on Friday afternoons. (Even Colgate knows not to hold classes then.) Since I already know of group travels happening on Fridays, I don't want to have to excuse myself from them because of this class. Again, ugh.
I thought that I would be able to find out what classes met when by using the St. Andrews website. As it turns out, course registration is St. Andrew's version of Colgate's Residential Life - aggravating, frustrating, inefficient, and ulcer-inducing. Half of the links on the site don't work, and the other half give you information that doesn't say anything other than "this class will be taught at some point in the future. Maybe." So it sounds like most of my finagling will have to happen tomorrow morning at the library. At least I know where the library is.
Aside from this class selection nightmare, I found the professors to be exceedingly friendly and willing to talk to us. And I was extra happy to find out that the upper level history courses are capped at 16 because they are discussion based. (So it is a good class size, but has contributed to my headache because I can't get in to any of the classes...) But I was very afraid of big lecture classes. I tend to fall asleep in large classes like that and I really do enjoy the back-and-forth of discussions. I can only hope that things work out in the end. Hope to update with some positive news tomorrow.
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