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Course selections.

 
Old 04-20-2010 at 10:23 PM   #1
Angoose
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Course selections.
I'm just wondering when course selections would take place for a first year student? Does this happen before the summer or in September? Thanks in advance! This would be for life sciences, if it makes a difference!
Old 04-20-2010 at 10:41 PM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Angoose View Post
I'm just wondering when course selections would take place for a first year student? Does this happen before the summer or in September? Thanks in advance! This would be for life sciences, if it makes a difference!
I'm trying to remember when I had to do this... I'm RELATIVELY certain you choose toward the later part of the summer, like August.
Old 04-20-2010 at 10:44 PM   #3
Melanieee
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i think these are the days

http://registrar.mcmaster.ca /regis...bVer sion.pdf
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Old 04-20-2010 at 10:46 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Melanieee View Post
Oh wow, I had no idea they did that so early. I could've sworn mine was later, but knowing my memory it's probably around the same as when I chose for Level 1 haha.
Old 04-20-2010 at 11:24 PM   #5
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So I will be competing against Business, Nursing and Health Science... Bring it on.

Can't wait for another enjoyable night on solar <3

EDIT: hint to first years. Get on Solar early to get the electives you want. But the most important thing would be to get on Solar on the day they let you re-adjust your courses. That is when you can change around your timetable. Get on there, make your timetable the way you want it and get out. Lol

Last edited by khaotic : 04-20-2010 at 11:27 PM.
Old 04-20-2010 at 11:26 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by khaotic View Post
So I will be competing against Business, Nursing and Health Science... Bring it on.

Can't wait for another enjoyable night on solar <3
Ahh, Solar. Nothing like having to try logging in 100 times before you get in, only to get kicked out after you pick one course.

I don't miss it.
Old 04-20-2010 at 11:29 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelsey18 View Post
Ahh, Solar. Nothing like having to try logging in 100 times before you get in, only to get kicked out after you pick one course.

I don't miss it.
Yep... Painful. But I won't have any electives next year so I'll just wait to select my courses . Then when they re-open Solar I will Ctrl+F5 like no tomorrow.
Old 04-20-2010 at 11:34 PM   #8
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I distinctly recall the night I did course selection. I started at 12:01, had my courses picked by 3:00. It's even worse when you decide to change classes and have to get in during the first week of the term, because then you just end up doing the same process. Waiting for an hour, get on, get kicked off.
Old 04-21-2010 at 06:44 AM   #9
ingénieur.xo
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Yay going into 4th year and getting to choose my courses on the second day!!
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Old 04-21-2010 at 09:00 AM   #10
arathbon
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Ha! Science doesn't get the last pick this year

I might actually get to take the second part of Italian.
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Old 04-21-2010 at 10:12 AM   #11
Melanieee
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I remember doing it sometime in early july I think, I was camping, and had one of those internet sticks you plug into the laptop, so it was slow... and my family and I were in the van, parked in some clearing, until about 3am until I was satisfied with most of my courses.

Also unless Bell has changed their Internet stick deal, dont get it. Our "Sign-up Deal" was like 25MB per MONTH! In that 3 hours loading and reloading the one page we were at 50MB ... I dont know how Bell thinks 25MB is useful at all.
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Old 04-21-2010 at 11:01 AM   #12
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First years pick usually the last week of June or the first week of July; it depends on when the current academic session ends, and thus when fourth years begin their selections (first years pick last)
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Old 04-21-2010 at 10:11 PM   #13
Angoose
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Thanks for the help everyone. Kind of nervous, since it's a new process and all. I will check out that link in a short while, but before that I have one question. So I pick all of my courses on one day, then later on I get to organize my courses however I want into my timetable? We're talking...three/four day weeks if I really want?
Old 04-21-2010 at 10:38 PM   #14
lorend
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Hi Angoose,

There are a couple of ways to organize your time table...I personally prefer mine.

What I do:
I make a grid/table that has times from 8am-10pm broken up until 30 min increments on the x-axis, and monday to friday on the y-axis; one for each semester.

Look at the course availability master list, and see what courses are available for next year. On the list they are identified as being available for term 1 (sept-dec), term 2 (jan-april) or term 3 (sept-april). E at the end of a course means it is in the evenings.

Courses are organized in the same format: xA0y: x= the year the course is for (1 = first year, 3= 3rd year etc) and y = the number of units (3 = half year course [4 months; either sept-dec or jan-april], 6=full year course, 0= lab safety course and there are also some 2, 4 and 5 unit classes in some programs...but I have no idea what those units mean in terms of term lenth and whatnot. So if you have Bio 1A03 you know it is a 3 unit first year Bio class.


Look at all of the courses I need to take, and find out when they are available. Courses are separated into Core (the lecture, indicated by C01 or C22 etc; basically a number of some kind), Tutorial (T01, T55), and for some classes Labs (L01, L22).

Cores are the lectures you have with the prof, and are offered 1-3 times a week in 50 min increments. Sometimes there are more than one section of the class. Tutorials are primarily for Soc Sci and Humanities classes and are much smaller, generally less than 25 students and taught by a Teaching Assistant (TA). Labs are...for courses you do experiments and around the same size as tutorials and also taught by a TA. Since tutorials and labs are much smaller than lectures, there are multiple sections for each in a given class.

From there, I plug each of the different sections into the spots on my grid. I use a bunch of different markers/highlighters etc to make sure I can tell the differences between the classes. I also make sure to indicate the labs and tutorials.

Then I do the same with all of my elective courses.

Based on your grid, you can see when the classes you need to take are available, and when the electives you want are available. If there are two classes occurring at the same time, it is known as a conflict. If it is between an elective class and and a required class, you would obviously make sure to select the required one.

Now, McMaster has changed the actual selection process around every year for the past four years. So when you actually get to the course selection software (SOLAR), I'm not sure if you you will be able to pick the specific sections of your cores, labs and tutorials right away, or if that comes later on after the initial course selection.

It's very, very unlikely as a first year you will have days off, especially if you are in the Sciences or Eng. Out of the 12 semesters I took at Mac, I had three with one day off/week and one with two days off per week. Hypothetically, it's possible...but not very possible since first year classes are usually three classes/week of fifty minutes, rather than two or three hours in a row like upper year classes.
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Last edited by lorend : 04-21-2010 at 10:41 PM.

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Old 04-22-2010 at 10:19 AM   #15
Melanieee
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lorend View Post
Hi Angoose,

It's very, very unlikely as a first year you will have days off, especially if you are in the Sciences or Eng. Out of the 12 semesters I took at Mac, I had three with one day off/week and one with two days off per week. Hypothetically, it's possible...but not very possible since first year classes are usually three classes/week of fifty minutes, rather than two or three hours in a row like upper year classes.
oh hmm I dont know if I like that trade off lol, a day off every week for really long days I liked my first year days to be 3 hours long lol
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