Preregistration – Fall 2013

Preregistration for Chem 201-202 is strongly encouraged.

You can preregister if you have completed the prerequisites (Chem 101 & 102), or if you have received the instructor’s consent. I’m the instructor: Alan Shusterman. Send me an email or drop by my office (C408).

Most students should register for one lecture section (TuTh 10:30-11:50 AM or WF 1:10-2:30 PM) and one lab section (MTuW 1:10-5:00 PM). If you sign up for lab, you must also sign up for the lab lecture (Th 6:40-7:30 PM).

Some more things to consider:

Transferring a prerequisite? You cannot preregister for Chem 201 until you have completed the prerequisites. This means the prerequisites (or the equivalent transfer courses) actually appear on your Reed transcript. If you are currently taking a course that you will transfer to Reed later on, you may not be able to preregister.

If you’re having this problem, here’s something you can do: ask your chemistry instructor at the other institution to send an email to me (Alan Shusterman) documenting your academic status as a lecture and lab student. If the instructor is willing to state that you are going to pass your introductory chemistry courses (lecture and lab), I will override the prerequisite requirement so that you can register. Naturally, once it becomes possible to transfer the course credit to Reed, you should do that right away (the Registrar and I will check in a few weeks to see that students actually have the necessary credits).

No room in the lab? We have scheduled three lab sections — M, Tu, W 1:10-5:00 — so that we can accommodate 72 lab students in Chem 201. Currently (Sunday, August 25), 62 students are preregistered for lab, but over a dozen are listed on lab waiting lists. What’s causing these problems?

First, not all students have the same choice of labs. Students in the TuTh can, in principle, take any lab, but students in the WF lecture can only take M or Tu labs. Also, most 201 students are taking another science course with a lab. Perhaps the lab schedule for the other course conflicts with one or more 201 labs.

My goal is to make it possible for as many students to take Chem 201 as possible and I will do what I can to make sure this happens. Naturally, I can’t guarantee that everyone will wind up with the schedule they like most. I certainly can’t do anything about conflicts so some students may be obliged to choose between 201 and another course

=(

but I will do what I can.

After pre-registration closes on Friday, the Registrar’s Office (at my request) will reassign students from one section to another in order to place as many students as possible in the course. Whether or not you are currently on a waiting list, you may end up getting moved from one lecture section to the other, from one lab to another, or possibly both. If, in the end, we can’t place you in 201 because of another course you are taking, you may have to choose between 201 and that course.

I hope that we can get everything sorted out right after pre-registration closes, but if we can’t, I will gather names of unplaced students who have a burning desire to take 201 and see if there’s any special pleading that I can do to find places for them. This has been known to work (sometimes).

Do you need to take lab (and lab lecture)? Maybe not.

The lecture-lab version of 201 is required for the chemistry, biology and BMB majors. It is also required for admission to certain post-graduate programs. And it is a prerequisite for the 202 lecture-lab course.

That said, if you want to take 201 (and 202) as a 0.5 unit lecture-only course, that’s fine with me.

And the lab lecture? If you have a conflict between the lab lecture and another course, I will provide you with a conflict override so that you can preregister for both courses. It will be up to you to decide which course to attend and it will be your responsibility to obtain notes from classmates. Lab lecture notes will not be posted (mostly because there aren’t any to post).

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