Tag Archives: registration

The dawn of snow! The ISO show and registration…

The dawn of snow! The ISO show! J-term & spring term Registration…! Woops, I couldn’t find a suitable word that rhymes with snow and show 🙂

Just few days ago, we were getting our jackets and winter coats ready, and excited to start building snow men across campus. But today we were taken back to those beautiful summer dayz in Midd. what’s up with you snow? are u coming or not? i wish she could hear me and just respond coz some Middkids are patiently waiting to start skiing it up right away!!

Well for now, registration for classes is upon us again—and as always, that means I am, like many others, spoiled for choices. The dining hall conversations are dominated by discussion on cool classes, tough classes, cool professors and so on…

Registration for spring semester started yesterday and as expected, seniors get to register first, then juniors etc. I happily got the classes I wanted. This is the time when our professors’ offices get invaded by students who need that last minute advising, unsure about what to take. Professors even extend office hrs to accommodate the demand of their students…

Just last week, during the winter term registration, I was thinking abt registering for a class called “world of Winston Churchill,” really. Yep, the description of the class captured my interest… I wanted to learn more about how one man (Churchill) was instrumental in designing the political landscape of Post-WWII Europe and the contemporary Middle East. Who knows? I might steal and reform his idea and end up one day redrawing the (political) map of Africa :). hmm that sounds like an imposing dictator huh?

Oh lest i forget, one of the interesting aspects about the registration process for the winter term is that seniors are the last to register for classes. It makes sense coz first year students are required to spend their first winter term in Middlebury and so registration priority is given to them…In fact most juniors and especially seniors end up i) taking a break in the winter just to relax or travel around the world ii) doing an internship (or independent research) iii) working on a thesis / independent project, as in my case…the list is long.

Anyway, I’ve now decided to just stick to the conventional approach for thesis writers—only work on my thesis in the winter term which is what is expected—a three-term long (fall, winter & spring) thesis, and then have some fun doing other extra-curricular stuffs rather taking a class. I could also audit the class if i choose to…

But I am a thinking about trying out cricket for the first time this winter, hoping to count it as a PE credit… I am trying to talk my Pakistani friend into teaching it as part of the winter term activities…we’ll see if I’ll be able to handle that “bat”, or is it called a “racket”? Sorry, but cricket is pretty much a foreign sport in the part of the world I come from (West Africa) 🙂

k my break is up! back to using these few mins to wrap up my problem set for tomorrow. The post on ISO show is coming up in the morning… are u wondering what ISO means? hold up there. see you in a few!

Class Registration: The Final Countdown

I’m admittedly a bit groggy this morning after waking up at 6:45 a.m. to register for spring term classes.  Class registration at Middlebury starts at 7 a.m., with each year assigned a specific day on which it can register.  Overall, the system works well, although it’s not without its quirks.  On your registration morning, your entire class will be awake, logging into Bannerweb (our class registration platform), and counting down the seconds until the clock strikes 7.  At 7:00:01, the mad rush begins, with everyone trying to enter course registration numbers before their top picks get filled up.  Sounds stressful?  Exciting?  Rushed?  It’s all of those things, but for my friends and I, it’s become something of a musical tradition.  During registration, one of my friends will blast Europe’s “The Final Countdown” throughout our suite.  By the end of the five or so minutes of musical excitement, all of us will have secured our classes and be headed back to bed.  This song has come to represent for me the energy surrounding registration and will always remind me of punching course registration numbers into Bannerweb.

For me, as a senior, today’s class registration gave “The Final Countdown” new meaning.  It’s strange to be choosing the last four courses I will take in college and the decision was by no means easy.  Although a lot of my spring semester will consist of independent research and a senior seminar on Chinese Foreign Policy, I wanted to take advantage of the rest of my time at Midd by choosing a couple of interesting courses outside of my major.  It’s really sunk in that next semester is the last hurrah, the Final Countdown.  Unlike you, who have four years of academic opportunity ahead of you, I only have a short time left in which to take classes like Russian Politics and Literature (my J-term choice).  To get a feel for typical Midd course offerings, check out the course catalog.

Signing off, I’d like to leave you with Sweden’s most notable contribution to 80s pop.  Meet Europe:

[youtube 9jK-NcRmVcw]