Dear COM and MES majors,

Early registration is always a busy time. It is, in fact, the worst time to do advising. As a result, we are making a distinction between registration and advising.

Advising involves charting your degree program's requirements (what to take when) and discussing your progress. Usually, freshman, sophomores and juniors want to make sure they are on the right track and seniors find it helpful to talk about their career goals or graduate school. In any case, advising should be an on-going process.

Our aim is to advise you throughout the year, but, as much as possible, not during registration. All you should need for registration is a quick check of your proposed schedule and a RAN#. Most of you already fit this "all I need is my RAN#" profile. Eventually, we hope this will be true for everyone.

If you need advising (where am I going?, what am I doing?, what should I take?), contact your advisor and set up an appointment. Also, contact your advisor if all you need is your RAN#. If you don't know who your advisor is, call 780-5388 to find out her/his name, phone number and email address.

Finally, many of you have asked if we could set up times when you could simply "walk-in" and get your RAN#. We have set up 4 sessions on the Fridays prior to each week's registration. There are now 4 weeks of registration. One week for each class standing - senior, junior, sophomore, and freshman.

The 4 Friday sessions will be held from 9 to 11AM on: March 21, April 4, April 11, and April 18.
These walk-in sessions are only for those who need a RAN#, not for those who need advising.

We realize that change takes time and that there will be glitches. Still, we will endeavor to properly advise and register everyone. Thanks for your cooperation along the way.

Russ Kivatisky
Chair