Iowa State students can register more efficiently this semester with helpful advice from their academic advisers.

Each semester the Office of the Registrar systematically breaks up the registration days and times for each student by using a variety of criteria, including a student’s year in school, the number of credits they have and any special groups they are in, such as an honors program. To stay ahead of the game, colleges ask students to meet with their academic or faculty advisers before registering.

Mason Babcock is an academic adviser for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. During each semester’s registration process, he works with more than 150 students who are primarily open option. With all of the courses available at Iowa State, he knows how overwhelming it can be trying to decide what to take.

“Attempting to navigate that mass system of classes and scheduling by yourself is kind of like going on a trip without a map,” Babcock said. “I think advisers can help provide some of those navigation tools and help guide students to classes and opportunities that really enrich their time here at Iowa State.”

Lisa Sharp, academic adviser for early childhood education, said students should use advisers as a resource.

“Advisers are there to help and give students information so that they can make good, informed decisions for themselves,” Sharp said. “It’s not to tell [students] what to do but really to help support them in choosing the correct classes that move them forward in their program.”

Sharp has an emphasis on student independence. She said that complications could occur when it’s time for students to figure out how their classes will fit together.

She said she is always willing to meet in person to find out what the alternatives are but wants students to take initiative first.

Similarly, Babcock urged students to look at the courses available before the meeting.

“Ideally we like the student to look at classes before they come in to kind of have an idea of some direction they’d like to go with their classes.”

But sometimes, as ISU advisers know well, things don’t always go according to plan.

“Typically, the student leaves my office with enough information that they can implement plan A, plan B or plan C,” Babcock said.

If they run into difficulties after that, he said students should meet with advisers again. Although a class filling up before you get to it is the number one complication relating to registration, there are a couple more problems that students need to be aware of.

Sharp said she could see students running into issues when they don’t know what they need to take to get their degree.

“I think that it’s really helpful for students to understand and know what their degree audit’s about and what the requirements are.”

Sharp said there are very specific requirements for the teacher licensure program.

Some things have to be met at specific times and it may be overwhelming. She always makes sure that it’s always part of the meeting to look at the degree audit and plan accordingly.

Another issue Babcock has come across is students not knowing their registration date.

“If students are being proactive and know their registration date, that’s huge,” Babcock said. “If you ignore that, then I think that it becomes an obviously tricky situation because you’re now allowing people in line ahead of you so to speak. And that’s a time you actually want to be a little bit selfish because it can affect your progress toward your degree.”

His last bit of advice are to meet with your adviser in a timely fashion, have a good plan and back up courses, use the course scheduler planner and make sure you are “registering someplace you have good Internet access.”

Babcock said the last thing a student needs is to have their Internet fail when you’re in a race for spots in a class.

Once students have taken care of their adviser meeting, they finally get their registration access number, commonly referred to as a RAN, and they can register. While the whole process might feel monotonous for those going through it again, Sharp said it is still necessary for students to meet with advisers.

Having the institution require the advisers to hand out the RAN to students does nothing but force students into a good place before signing up for classes.

“Collaborating and working together, the student and the adviser, is critical for one, getting the schedule want, but more importantly, the course you want to take to get your degree,” Babcock said.