Aside from midterm season or the horror of seeing your least favorite professor at your favorite coffee shop, registration is one of the scariest experiences as a student. With registration comes the difficult decision to pull an all-nighter or attempt to wake up early to battle against hundreds of other students for a spot in the class you want.
However, my registration story from last semester is more horrific than all of that. After semester after semester of getting all the courses I wanted with no issues, I foolishly thought that this time would be no different. I put a reminder in my calendar and headed over to Pierce Cafe to grab a cup of coffee to help me stay up the night before. Ignoring the spooky neon orange color and the fact that I didn’t recognize the barista (which was very strange considering how regularly I frequent dining locations on campus), I chose to finish it without sparing another thought.
That morning, I was ready to register for my classes, eagerly texting my friends to confirm we were on the same page for class sections. As I logged in to Workday and got ready to click the register button, I noticed that none of my pre-saved classes were there. My heart dropped as I clicked around, hoping to find the saved schedule that I had worked so hard on. Then, things got worse. I realized that I was ineligible for all the classes I had meticulously planned, which made no sense since I had already filled out my prerequisite override requests and checked in with my advisor. So, I clicked on the warnings Workday was giving me. That’s when I saw it.
Somehow, I changed my major back to computer science. I had no memory of it. Looking at my laptop’s browsing history, it seemed to have happened after I drank that suspicious cup of coffee. I don’t know what sort of curse was bestowed upon my coffee, but I knew I had to fix it. If I didn’t, I would have to endure the horrors of CS-334 and other notoriously difficult classes, and while I do enjoy computer science, I was in no way prepared to go back. I do not have fond memories of the problem sets, coding frustrations, or trying to understand the textbooks.
With shaky hands, I frantically clicked around on Workday and couldn’t figure out how to switch it back to even why this happened. Even worse, Outlook wasn’t working, so I couldn’t even email my advisor for assistance. At this point, all I could do was close my laptop and conduct my own investigation.
Braving the harsh winds on campus, I headed up to the cafe. Hiding behind one of the chairs on the second floor of Howe, I watched on as the barista swapped out the regular coffee for some sort of magical, glowing concoction. I watched on as students who tried this magical coffee began to act out of the ordinary and show a sudden love and appreciation for computer science.
Upon more research (hiding out for a long time and watching the effects of the coffee in real time), I concluded that this curse was spread by the computer science department in an attempt to recruit students to the major due to the fact that so many students have switched out. So next time you wake up late and completely miss registration or don’t get into the specific class section you want, remember that it could be worse — you could be cursed and now declared a student of your former major.
