Whether you are struggling mightily with course material, or you are trying to maintain your 4.0 GPA, there are a number of places - in addition to your professors and TAs - where you can get some help!

Advance Registration for Spring 2013 is rapidly approaching! This can be a very stressful time, but if you follow these eight steps, you will give yourself the best chance at having a great schedule!

1. Find out when you will become eligible to register. Students become eligible to register for classes over several weeks, in order of descending credit totals (IOW, Seniors go first, Freshmen last). The Registrar’s Office publishes a Registration Timeline so that students can estimate their earliest date of registration. That timeline can be found here.

2. Figure out who your advisor is for your declared major. Each department is a little different in how they communicate that information to students: some send out an email to each student, some post the information outside their Department's main office, and others list that information in myUMBC. If you're not sure what your department does, you can always refer to the list of Departmental Advising Contacts maintained by the Office for Acadcemic & Pre-Professional Advising.

3. Make an appointment for advising.  If you have been assigned an advisor in your department, he or she may send or post instructions on how to do so. FOLLOW THEIR INSTRUCTIONS! Ideally, you should schedule this appointment to occur before your earliest possible registration date.

4. Know your Major, General Education, University, and any other academic requirements. Ultimately, you hold sole responsibility for making sure that these requirements are fulfilled. Use your online Degree Audit – found in the “Advising & Student Support” section of your myUMBC – to help you track your progress.

5. Prepare yourself for your appointment. At minimum, you should be able to tell your advisor what grade you are earning in each of your current classes, and which courses you plan to take in the next semester. If you are a little worried that you won't be able to answer all of your advisor's questions on-the-spot, try filling out an Advising Appointment Preparation Worksheet. It includes the questions commonly asked by academic advisors, plus a space for you to write down any questions that you want to remember to ask during your appointment.

6. Attend your advising appointment.  If you fail to show up for the advising appointment time that you’ve chosen, there is no guarantee that you will be able to reschedule an appointment that will occur before your Registration Eligibility date.  This will delay your ability to register for classes, and possibly affect your ability to get into classes that you need/want to take.

7. Make sure that you have no other holds on your account – the most common of these are Financial, Health, and Judicial Holds. These items can be taken care of AFTER you meet with your advisor, but must be done BEFORE you can register for classes.  Check in the “Alerts” section of your myUMBC account - that's the bell icon at the top of your myUMBC home page. If you have a hold that will prevent you from registering for classes, you will have a message posted there.

8. Register for your courses in a timely manner.  Because students become eligible to register gradually, the longer you wait, the more competition there is for the classes that you want to get into.  To give yourself the best possible choices for your schedule, register as early as you can!

Advance Registration for Spring 2013 is open to all continuing UMBC students who are registered for classes in Fall 2012. If you are a continuing UMBC student who is NOT registered in Fall 2012, you may begin registering for Spring 2013 when General Registration begins on November 27th.