It is mid-November, and the so-called “Registration Games” for second semester classes has started for first year students. It is a common consensus among us freshmen that this period holds suspenseful moments, where shouting, jumping, joy and madness are all integrated in our attempts to create the perfect spring schedule. A closer look reveals real cases of the above-mentioned feelings:
6:17 p.m.: Seventeen minutes after registration has opened up exclusively for Emory Scholars: a seemingly relaxed and carefree individual sits with his laptop in a comfy chair in one of the lounges of freshman residence hall Longstreet-Means, slowly opening up a window for OPUS. No hurry; he knows that his top choices will be his to enroll in. He browses his shopping cart: all he sees is green – that green light that freshmen like to believe in, just like Gatsby:
“[Freshmen] believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. So we beat on, boats against the current.”
While the current felt by the Emory scholar at 6:17 p.m. was more of a nice, sweet breeze, the one felt by the less lucky who have later registration times was certainly strong enough to rock their boat.
7:00 p.m.: Two focused, ready-for-the-attack girls in Few Hall, click desperately on the “Enroll” button. Ten seconds later, one of them jumps off her chair and screams desperately. The green light, the orgastic future, has switched to a “freaking red.”
7:35 p.m.: A despondent guy in Harris Hall looks blankly at the screen of his computer. The green lights totally eluded him, and he can only see the “freaking red.” He debates what to do, and decides that tomorrow he will run faster and stretch his arms farther, in the hope that Add/Drop/Swap will magically restore his QTM 100 green light.
Registering for classes does not have to remove our belief in the green light. It all usually sorts out during Add/Drop/Swap, and if that is not enough to restore the green light, there is always the hope of overloading in a class. The best thing to do would be to “beat on, boats against the current.” As cliché as it sounds, I wish you all Happy Registration Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor.
– By Loli Lucaciu
The Emory Wheel was founded in 1919 and is currently the only independent, student-run newspaper of Emory University. The Wheel publishes weekly on Wednesdays during the academic year, except during University holidays and scheduled publication intermissions.
The Wheel is financially and editorially independent from the University. All of its content is generated by the Wheel’s more than 100 student staff members and contributing writers, and its printing costs are covered by profits from self-generated advertising sales.
