This March, students will be allowed to register for more than just this summer and next fall semesters. They will have the opportunity to register for Spring 2016 courses, as well. 

Most students probably haven’t realized that this change is taking place. However, we at The Collegian suspect that many students will panic when they realize that they need to plan out their schedules for the entire next year, instead of just the next semester.

Before students panic, they should know registering for next spring now is not a requirement. Students have the option to wait until next fall, if they want to. That being said, they should seriously consider participating in the change. 

By taking the opportunity to register for the next year, students have the chance to be more prepared and can better solidify what they need to have done before graduating. 

It is expected that graduation rates will go up, and the amount of students graduating in four years is expected to increase. SDSU, and many other schools in the Board of Regents are switching to multi-semester registration, and this is following a trend that many universities nationwide have already picked up. 

In the beginning stages, administration at SDSU looked to other universities that have already changed to this process in order to see what bumps they might run into. According to a story published by Inside Higher Ed, Cleveland State University has seen positive results since going to multi-semester registration. Students can plan around their family commitments, as well as other things, such as jobs and they can better estimate the financial costs of the upcoming semester, based on expected credit hours or lab fees. 

Not only will students benefit from the registration change, but departments can better plan for what courses need more sections or whether or not a class will be cancelled due to lack of student interest. 

When it comes to a class, nothing can be more annoying than when a course gets cancelled two weeks before the semester starts. With this change, departments will have a whole extra semester to decide if a course is going to have enough students or not. 

A concern that The Collegian has with the registration policy is that advisors won’t have enough time to spend with each individual student for enough time to plan out their schedule for an extra semester. However, we expect this is one of the kinks that they will have to address in the coming semesters. 

With such a quick turnaround from when the decision was made to go to multi-semester registration to spring registration next month, it seems like there may be more than a few issues to resolve. 

Incoming freshmen, who start their college careers planning for an entire year, will be better off than some of the current students trying to make the switch. However, typically departments provide checklists for students to track what courses they have left, meaning with a little time and some discussion with their advisors, students should be able to plan for a year out.