With enrollment for the fall 2019 term beginning on Wednesday, many students are utilizing tools such as the NC State course catalog in hopes of creating their dream schedules. However, few students are aware of the behind-the-scenes process in creating, maintaining and updating the course catalog.
Kyle Pysher, assistant registrar for scheduling, explained how students can best utilize this resource to create their desired schedules.
“The course catalog contains all the information about courses on campus, from how many credit hours they are worth to the course description to when they’re offered,” Pysher said. “There’s a public-facing version that students can use to plan schedules, to know when courses are generally offered, what they are about and how they may fit into their degree program… If students need to research the courses that are listed on their [degree] audit, the course catalog is a great place to do that.”
Jessica Bronchick, assistant registrar for communication, also plays a role in creating the undergraduate catalog, which is a snapshot of all courses available for the given academic year.
“There are two public-facing course catalogs,” Bronchick said. “There’s the one that’s searchable, so students can see in real time all of the class information, so anything about a course that is available in MyPack in the student enrollment system. There’s also the undergraduate catalog website, which is also public, but that is not updated in real time.”
Pysher said that students with additional questions about course content can reach out to the department in charge of the course.
“Courses have to go through an approval process,” Pysher said. “They have to go through a committee and be approved for any change in a class. Once it’s approved at those committees, it comes to our office, where the update is actually made in the catalog.”
Pysher said that undergraduate-level courses are approved by the Office of Undergraduate Courses and Curricula, and graduate level courses are approved by the Graduate School.
“For fall 2019, department scheduling officers started making their schedules in December,” Pysher said. “They usually have until early February, before it gets released to us to do the room assignments, before students enroll in March… Basically, when [departments] have that scheduling period, they’re working with professors to figure out what time they can teach the course, if they can teach the course, and then working to determine who’s teaching it when.”
Pysher and Bronchick said that from like term to like term (fall to fall, spring to spring), courses offered are generally similar. However, they said that new courses are being added constantly.
“In terms of the public catalog, our department is working very closely with the Office of Undergraduate Courses and Curricula,” Bronchick said. “We’re working really closely with them to update the public catalog website… really making that more accessible to students and prospective students.”
Bronchick said that the Office of Undergraduate Courses and Curricula is also working on improving the course approval process and the program approval process which would make it easier for faculty and department heads to add and edit courses.
“Scheduling is a very difficult process that is more complicated than most people probably assume,” Pysher said. “The ultimate goal is to create a schedule that works for students.”
To learn more about how to utilize the NC State course catalog and other tools such as degree audit and enrollment wizard, students can visit the Student Services Center website.
