The only time college students will willingly jump out of bed at 6:50 a.m. is when class registration opens at 7 a.m.

Every Grand Valley State University student has gone through the same struggle of laying out the perfect classes, picking the best sections with favorite teachers at favorable times, only to enter all of the class registration numbers into myBanner to meet one of many terrible fates: myBanner has crashed due to overload of the server, the wifi is down due to overuse, or, worst of all, there are no sections of a class left.

“Registration is stressful, because there are a lot of students trying to get into classes,” said Danielle Leek, an associate professor and academic adviser. “It’s done on a computer, where there’s a lot of coding that determines whether a class is available to a student or not. Sometimes there’s mistakes in the system, sometimes a student doesn’t understand what is available to them or not available to them.”

Registering for classes can be hard, but with adequate planning and preparation, it can be a breeze.

“I recommend working with an adviser and using myPath when planning out a schedule,” said Laura Przybytek, associate registrar. “It’s also a good idea to have a few alternative classes lined up.”

Some majors at GVSU have hundreds of students, which causes sections of classes to fill up more quickly than others. This is especially hard for underclassmen, because older students with more credits get priority when registering for classes.

Working with an academic adviser to lay out classes ahead of time to get the right general education credits and take the right prerequisites is the easiest course of action for many students, since myBanner can only tell students what they need, but not what sections are offered and when.

Leek suggests meeting with advisers well before registration week in order to figure everything out in time. She said that advisers tend to get swamped with advisees the closer it is to registration, so going in early is a good idea.

“Some advisers have 200 or 300 advisees,” Leek said. “There’s literally no way for them to talk to their advisees in one week.”

Przybytek said that her office works hard to make sure things go smoothly for students when it comes to registration day.

“Preparation for advanced registration is an ongoing endeavor,” she said. “It’s a culmination of a multi-office collaboration, which includes building an annual schedule to meet the needs of students. We spend a significant amount of time testing the systems and ensure that our staff is available and prepared to assist students with any questions or concerns.”

For information regarding class registration, go to www.gvsu.edu/registrar.