Planning Your Schedule

After consulting the timetable, you will be able to begin building your weekly schedule. Note that your schedule is divided into two parts: a Fall term running from September to December (including all D1 and D2 courses), and a Winter term running from January to April (including all D1 and D3 courses- D1 courses run in both terms). The Fall/Winter session is split into two terms, so you should try to split your course load evenly across the Fall and Winter terms (i.e., if you are taking 5 credits total, try to take 2.5 credits each term).

Schedule planning may seem daunting for those who haven't had to make a weekly school schedule before. However, having control over your schedule is very handy to the many students who have obligations outside of academics. As classes run from the early morning to late at night, you are given more control and input over your final schedule than with an automatically generated schedule. It is helpful to keep the following tips in mind when building your schedule:

• All courses offerings are listed in the online timetable. Consult this resource for course component availability: brocku.ca/registrar/guides/returning/timetable
• Schedule one course at a time. Start with required/major credits first, context credits next, and electives last.
• Be sure to schedule one of each course component. If the timetable lists a lecture and seminar as being offered for a certain course, you must select one of each component type to fully enrol in a course. Schedule lectures first, and secondary components (seminars, labs, tutorials, etc.) next.
• If you run into a conflict (overlap) between more than one course component, change the component with the most offerings listed in the timetable.
• Feel free to schedule classes back to back, as 10 minutes are allotted between each class as transfer time for classes on campus.

Timetable worksheets are available to assist you with building a conflict-free schedule.

Course locations and times

There is a very useful function in the online registration system called "Course Locations and Times," which will display a printable timetable for you, updated as you successfully register in course components. This function will also display any situations where conflicts (overlaps) exist between course components. However, as the function is only available through the online registration system, this feature will be unavailable to you if you are planning your classes before the registration system opening date. If you select your courses before your registration date, try to plan your schedule in a timetable format during this process, to make the registration process simpler. You will also need an understanding of schedule planning should you run into a timetable conflict during the registration process.