Now this is a college student’s dream: The Perfect Class Schedule. You know, the one that doesn’t start until 10 am, is over by 3pm, and no class on Fridays. Not to mention professors that grade easy. While I can’t promise you that you will get this dream schedule, I have some tips to plan out a schedule that will fit right for you.
Disclaimer: University of South Carolina uses Degree Works to schedule classes, so some of these tips may not apply to you if your University uses a different program.
Strategize Class Order
Ideally, the perfect class schedule won’t have 8 am classes but it is going to be almost impossible to avoid. However, you will be able to chose which classes you place at 8:30 because they are almost always open. My best advice is to put your easiest classes early in the morning. This way if you zone out or accidentally oversleep it’s not as big of a deal.
Then, I would put your hardest class immediately after so that you will have woken up a bit. I know it may not seem like fun to go from one class straight to another but do not plan breaks in between classes unless it is for lunch! Your day will feel drawn out and it will allow you time to go to your dorm and then you won’t want to go back.
Finally, finish with an easy or medium difficulty level class. By the end of the day you will be really exhausted. This is also key on Fridays so that you can leave early for a weekend trip or a commute home.
Look At The Building Locations
When you are planning out your perfect class schedule, you will want to be checking what buildings the classes are assigned to. I always had a campus map pulled up online while I was scheduling to ensure that my classes weren’t super far from each other. This can also be important when it comes to planning where you are going to park your car. Sometimes you may even get lucky and have back to back classes in the same building!
Check Rate My Professor
Almost everyone I know uses Rate My Professor which is a website that allows students to put ratings and reviews about professors they had. I have found it to be pretty accurate, but you can’t take it too seriously. There will always be slackers posting about how upset they were that their professor didn’t just hand out good grades. I use this site occasionally, but it is my third priority for scheduling classes. I prefer to have my ideal times and locations rather than focus on professors. You are never going to be able to pick out all of the perfect professors.
Out of State Students:
If you are an out of state student and plan on heading home every once in a while on the weekends there is a few things you need to take into consideration. For students that fly home, you will want to know what the regular flight schedule looks like on Fridays. If the only flight to your home city is at 3 pm, you can’t take a 2:30 class on Friday. This is something I’ve had to learn the hard way. Obviously it is not super important because you can always miss one class, but it is definitely something to take into consideration.
Schedule Planner
University of South Carolina uses a tool called Schedule Planner. This is linked in our homepage of important information which we call my.sc.edu. The Schedule Planner lets you put in the classes you plan on taking, and it shows you every option for that class. So if you type in the 5 classes you plan on taking, it will show you every possible schedule combination.
One of my favorite things is that it also lets you add in breaks. So if you don’t want any 8:30 classes then you can make a break during that time and the scheduler won’t show you any 8:30 classes.
You also have the option to lock in certain classes but keep searching for other courses. When you are all done, you can “add to shopping cart” so you can simply transfer everything you saved when you are actually registering.
See if your school uses schedule planner here: https://www.collegescheduler.com
That is all the tips I have for you!
