It’s that time of the term again, when dreams go to be crushed under the bureaucratic weight of course registration. As a bright-eyed first-year student, one enters the hallowed halls of academia with stars in our eyes, only to have them swiftly extinguished by the harsh reality of the registration process.

First things first, forget about simply selecting your desired courses and moving on with your life. No, for the Union student, course registration is a complex dance of pre-approval surveys and fervent prayers to the academic gods.

Pre-approval surveys are the Holy Grail of course registration. Want to have even a remote chance of getting into that seminar on mountain bike monkey tumbling? Better fill out a survey detailing your academic aspirations, extracurricular commitments, and the exact number of freckles on your left cheek. Because clearly, your ability to excel in a course is directly correlated with your proficiency in survey completion.

But even with pre-approval surveys completed to perfection, the journey is far from over. Armed with a beautifully crafted schedule, you embark on the pilgrimage to the registrar’s office, prepared to beg, plead, and possibly even sacrifice a small goat in the name of securing enrollment. Because nothing says “I’m serious about my education” like groveling at the feet of administrative staff.

Of course, even the most masterful begging sessions can’t guarantee you a spot in your desired courses. Welcome to the cruel world of backup plans, where your backup plans need backup plans, and even those backup plans might end up being thwarted by the whims of the registration system. It’s a vicious cycle of disappointment and despair, but hey, at least you’ll graduate with a PhD in contingency planning.

And let’s not forget about planning for spring term, AKA the season of chaos. While other colleges might offer a reprieve from the rigors of academia during spring, we crank things up to eleven with a deluge of events, obligations, and existential crises. Think Springfest, Lobsterfest, and Steinmetz (and that’s only three of our biggest events– all saved for the spring term). Because who has a chance to focus on coursework when you could be doing absolutely anything else with the gorgeous weather and million events?

In conclusion, as you’re going into registration, brace yourself for a rollercoaster ride of frustration, futility, and the occasional fleeting moment of academic triumph. It may be a nightmare, but hey, at least it builds character. And who knows, maybe someday you’ll look back fondly on the days when securing a spot in Intro to 17th Century Albanian Literature felt like scaling Mount Everest.