Rob Hasker's Survival Guide
for Advance Registration

Quick Summary

1. Write preliminary plans for the next term's schedule and any questions you may have. It's good to review the SWE and CSC curricula. Note also the Electives tab for both pages; this describes the various elective courses for each major.
2. Sign up for a registration time at Bookings.
   • Note you must be logged in to MSOE email for this link to work. If you get a 404 error, try accessing MSOE email using this link. A common issue is that you may be logged in to a work email address if that workplace also uses Microsoft products. The simplest solution is to log in to MSOE email on a whole new browser (for instance, using Chrome if you normally use Firefox for work) and then accessing the above link. If that does not work, message your advisor.
3. Show up to your meeting! If you can't, cancel it and make a new one.
4. Take notes at the meeting! The notes I write are generally not available to advisees.
5. See the bottom of the page for a tool to identify when seats open up in classes during registration.

More Detail

Useful information for all students, especially first-year students.

1. If you have not yet, review your curriculum, either the SE curriculum or the CS curriculum. These contain important information about the program and suggests which courses you need to take next term.
2. Review your transition plan and come with ideas for any changes you think need to be made. If you have a choice of what to take (such as a science elective or a humanities elective), review the offerings and come with ideas of which you would like to take. Some resources for picking classes:
• To learn about Raider Core requirements, see this page. You can also search for specific raider core classes in the Scheduler to find the courses offered in the next term, and the full list of all courses satisfying the requirements is available in the catalog. The CSC and SWE programs already satisfy many of these requirements through COM, MTH, and senior design courses, so your focus will typically be on finding courses covering Curiosity, Diversity, and Ethics. You will also need an additional course covering any of the Raider Core requirements, essentially doubling-up on one of the areas.
• To see what HU and SS electives are open, click on the Advanced tab of the scheduler.
• If you are going to be a junior or senior next term, see this list of technical electives that are available in the coming year. Descriptions for many of these are available at csse.msoe.us/cs/progelec/. Note this schedule often changes in the course of the year, so make backup plans!
• Semester conversion guide: information for students transitioning from the quarter-based calendar to the semester-based calendar.
• All electives, including free electives, must come from the list for your program (msoe.us/SE or msoe.us/CS). Make sure you have the right curriculum version!
3. Know when your advising appointment is - that is, when you can register for classes - and make sure you get advised by me at least a few days earlier. But there is no reason to wait this long; generally it is best to be advised in weeks 9 or 10. I typically prefer advising start about week 7 so you have a chance to see how you are doing in your existing courses, but I am happy to talk to advisees whenever you have questions. Be sure to get advised and registered by week 14. Week 15 and later is known as the "late registration" period where MSOE no longer guarantees that you will be able to register for classes you need to graduate. Talk to me if you have questions about this campus policy.
4. Make sure you are prepared for your appointment! Do you have your checklist? Do you have a list of courses for next semester? Do you have your appointment in whatever calendar manager you use on a regular basis?
5. Come to your appointment and take notes. Being a couple minutes late is not a problem, but being very late may result in needing to reschedule.
   • If you need to reschedule, simply delete the booking and schedule a new one. You don't need to message me about the change.
   • Taking notes is important. You will not have easy access to the notes I write.
6. Once your advising and other holds are lifted, register for classes in my.msoe.edu. There are directions for this at the Registrar's website.
7. If classes are closed: First, see if there's another section open. If there are no sections open and you cannot take an alternative class instead, see how to request entering a full section of a class. While you may not get your preferred selection, requests to get into required courses are nearly always granted. The exception to this is if you have waited until the late registration period, when we may not be able to fit you into a class. Register as soon as you can!
8. After your meeting, send me email if you had to make significant changes to your schedule. Changing sections or changing between two electives with the same prefix is not significant, but I do need to know if you replace a required course by another. The catalog is a great resource to find replacements when you need them!

Information on Picking Classes

• Read through the catalog. There are a lot of important policies there, and failing to follow them can result in taking an extra year to graduate. Don't depend on friends; the "catalog of rumors" (the Registrar's term!) is full of errors. Know what information is in the catalog and how to find it so you can be well informed if you need to do something like drop a course. The catalog is essentially the rules you need to follow to graduate, so it's a good idea to know those rules!
• Review the online curriculum guide for your program. The catalog says "approved courses" in many cases; these online guides list the actual courses you can take:
• Computer Science students see the CS course sequence page
• Software Engineering students see the SE course sequence page
• Note both of these pages contain links to the advising pages that were in effect in earlier years; pick the one that was active when you started taking classes at MSOE.
• Bring a list of classes, not sections. I am not concerned about your weekly schedule; you can decide that for yourself.
• Use the scheduler to make up your schedule. Be sure to check prerequisites!

Additional Advising Notes and Resources

• If you change your classes at the beginning of the next term (maybe because you failed a prerequisite or just decide to take a different class), please talk to me or send me email. Failing to complete critical courses on time (for example, CS 2852 - Data Structures or MA 2310 - Discrete Mathematics 1) can make it very challenging to graduate in four years.
• If you get behind, one solution is to take summer classes at MSOE or transfer in classes from another school.
• Summer classes are listed during the spring spring on the Registrar's website.
• Before taking a course at another institution, check the Transfer Manual to make sure the course will apply at MSOE.
• Unofficial GenEd Notes: a guide created by a faculty member that describes the semester-based general educational requirements. The official information is in the catalog, but this answers a lot of questions more directly and can be a useful resource for understanding the basic structure of the new requirements.
• When things go wrong and you're placed on probation or suspension, see the policies page for important information, especially the probation FAQ and the suspension FAQ. Contact me if you have questions about the process or just want to make sure you are doing the right thing.
• If you're trying to get into a high-demand class, it can help to have a tool that notifies you when seats open up. See this blog for a program you can write that will monitor for open seats. The source code is available at xiugaze's site on github
• If you're trying to get into a course that has a restriction to specific majors, see this MSOE stack overflow discussion. You'll need to set up a general Stack Overflow account to see the page, though this particular page is only visible to MSOE community members.