Student Blog

Course registration is stressful, especially your first time. But don’t worry! SPA is here to make it as straightforward for you as possible. Continue reading till the end for our helpful tips when registering for courses.

1. Confirm the date!

As soon as you are notified with your course registration date and time, make sure to note down or set a reminder in your calendar so you won’t miss the timing! Be careful to have your devices ready way before the designated time, since the system will be opened on time and even a few seconds of delay can make or break getting into a popular course.

Check out AY2021 Course Registration on the Academic Office website here

2. Choose courses wisely

There are some certain files you may want to check out and spend some time diving deep into before the course registration date.
First and foremost is the course timetable. Often, there will be some tentative versions (in which not all course information is available) before the official one with classroom information posted, so don’t forget to keep an eye on Campus Terminal or the Academic Office website for the latest update.
Next, you’ll want to check the class evaluation survey results. Every semester, at the end of all courses, the Academic Office manages a “Class Evaluation Survey” to get feedback from students who attended the course. This is not only to get reflection on how to improve teaching quality in APU, but also to give us students more details about content, teaching methods, course design, or some other information that is hard to get from syllabus.

Survey results are divided into different categories (academic year, majors, liberal arts/major subjects)

3. Create a (mock) go-to schedule

This will be your guideline for course registration. You may create as many schedules as you want, but during course registration day, you will only be able to register for one (for real). Make sure you have at least one layout of how your schedule will look like that you feel good about!

4. Log into Campusmate in advance, be ready (both physically and mentally), and prepared for the second

Courses, especially the popular ones, fill up super quickly. This is indeed true when many people are trying to register for the same course at the exact same moment. So, we suggest you warm up your fingers and clicking skills, and get ready to click that “Course Registration” button. Don’t forget to “Save Changes” and take notes of your registration number to make sure you keep track of your record. There’s also another period where you can add or drop courses, and more information can be found here.

5. Don’t panic!

Clicking on that “Save Changes” button and getting an error notice is an alert that the course is full, a stressful moment that we bet many APU students have experienced. Luckily, apart from those courses, there’s a great number of interesting courses on a large variety of subjects offered at APU, so don’t be disappointed if you don’t get the class you want. Instead, you may want to take another look into the course timetable and syllabus, or work on your plan B or C to fill up the credits.

Good luck with course registration!

Ha Phan Ngoc DOAN

Hi! I’m Ha, class of 2021FA, majoring in IRPS (International Relations and Peace Studies). On campus, I was a Resident Assistant, Teaching Assistant, APU Student Ambassador and Student Staff at APU Library. I can’t wait to share with you all my experience as a SPA member!