Course Selection & Registration

Office of Student Success and Transitionarrow_forward

After their first term at Berea College, students choose their courses through the registration process. With counsel and support from their advisors, students select and register for courses 2–3 times per year.

Academic advisors often require students to set up an individual meeting with them before Fall and Spring course registration. This meeting is an opportunity to review the student’s plans and ensure they are making satisfactory progress toward degree requirements.

Students’ academic advisors might ask that students come to their pre-registration advising appointments with a list or schedule of courses that fulfill major requirements.

Frequently Asked Questions

Curriculum Guides– The Office of the Registrar develops Curriculum Guides for each major and minor at Berea College. These PDF documents outline the General Education requirements on the left, the major or minor requirements on the right. Curriculum Guides also include other important information, including the requirements to be admitted into a major during the Declaration of Major process.
Degree Works, Degree Audit– Students can use Degree Works, the College’s degree-auditing and tracking tool, to see in real-time what General Education, major, or minor requirements they have satisfied in their current or previous course work. Learn more about running a degree audit.

Using the Curriculum Guides and the Degree Audit, students can ensure they are taking:

any courses required for admission to a major (students are usually required to Declare their Major during their fourth term, usually the spring of their sophomore year),
required for major(s) or minor(s) – to successfully progress in a major and graduate in four years students need to begin taking major courses during their first year,
required as part of the General Education curriculum – including the five General Studies Required (GSTR) courses, the six perspectives, the Health & Wellness requirements, and others detailed in the Berea College Catalog.

Spring Term– November
May & Summer Terms– February
Fall Term– March

3.0–4.5 credits in the Fall or Spring terms – Students need 32-33 total credits to graduate and typically receive 8 regular (Fall and Spring) terms to complete their degree so students should plan to take 4.0–4.5 credits each term or plan to use the May and Summer terms to complete additional credits.
3.0 credits are required to be a full-time student – Students need to take 3.0 credits each term to be considered a full-time student. If a student needs to take less than 3.0 credits per term, the student would need to discuss being a part-time student with an SST staff member.

A couple of weeks before the registration window, students will be sent a PDF copy of the schedule of classes. Unfortunately, the PDF is not updated when changes are made to the schedule.

To ensure you are using the most up-to-date information, SST encourages students to use another tool:

the Dynamic Schedule – Students can use the Dynamic Schedule on the Office of the Registrar homepage to look up the most up-to-date, real-time information about classes including the number of open seats a course has remaining.

Couriscle– Coursicle is a web-based tool that students can use to build a weekly schedule for the next term. It includes important information about a course, including the Course Registration Numbers, and will help ensure a student is not planning to take courses with overlapping times.
Course Registration Planning Form– SST staff have also developed the Course Registration Planning Form and a Registration Preparation Checklist that we think will help student prepare for their pre-registration advising appointments and collect all of the information they will need to register for courses successfully.

Remember– If you need additional assistance or support deciding what classes you should take, schedule an appointment with SST through Navigate Berea or email SST@berea.edu.

During Registration (announced by the Office of the Registrar), students can use the Add/Drop Courses function in the Academics tab on MyBerea to register for courses. Students will use the Course Registration Numbers (CRNs) to add new courses.
After online registration closes, students will need to use the Office of the Registrar’s Course Registration Form to add or drop courses.

Students, especially in their first and second years at Berea College, are not always able to register for the courses they want to take due to a limited number of seats in each course.
To plan for this reality, SST encourages students to build 2–3 alternate schedules, each one with different classes that they could take, to ensure they will be able to register for classes that will help them meet their degree requirements.

Course selection & registration can seem complicated. Schedule an appointment with your academic advisor or an SST staff member using Navigate Berea, emailing SST@berea.edu, or calling (859) 985-3376.