August 4th, 11:34 AM: Receive an email from rmsadmin regarding “Your Fall 2016 Enrolment Appointment”. I am then informed that the enrolment period for first year students in all faculties opens on August 9th at 6:00 AM. In RAMSS, I notice that my schedule has already been mostly predetermined, as I have mandatory courses that I’ve already been enrolled in for ease.

August 9th, 5:15 AM: Alarm goes off with a reminder that course selection begins in 45 minutes. From personal experience, I am aware that Ryerson’s website is not the most technologically advanced website ever developed, so I intend to be in RAMSS at 6 AM sharp to avoid being caught in server overload before getting to choose my courses.

August 9th, 5:30 AM: I reset my alarm for 5:45, because I’m a chronic Night Owl who never feels like I’ve gotten enough sleep. 15 minutes is enough preparation for the course selection race, right?

August 9th, 5:45 AM: I wake up yet again, and I still don’t feel like I’ve gotten enough sleep. Looks like I shouldn’t have tried for that extra 15 minutes. Oops! I open Table A in my web browser, saving the course codes of my preferred electives in a word document that I minimize for easy reference once in RAMSS. I make something to eat, because I have ten minutes until course selection, and I’m getting kind of hungry.

August 9th, 5:55 AM: I open RAMSS, reviewing the weekly schedule I received just last week, reminding myself that there are a few times that I’m sure some courses would be scheduled for. I decide to review Table A, just in case my two electives happen to overlap with my schedule, and I have to choose my backup courses (which, by this time, I don’t have.) I don’t actually decide on anything, though I have multiple tabs open with potential candidates. I also log into Twitter since I have some time to kill.

August 9th, 6:00 AM: I’m in RAMSS now. How does this thing work? I’m not seeing any courses that aren’t in the Chang School, so something must not be right here. I click around on RAMSS for a couple of minutes, but it’s taking so long to load everything, objectively.

August 9th, 6:11 AM:

August 9th, 6:15 AM: I notice that some of my required courses have the “dropped” symbol beside them, implying that somehow, I’ve been dropped from the course without being notified. Although, they also still appear on my weekly schedule, so maybe I’ve already been re-enrolled in them? They’re mandatory, after all… I decide to wait until I get back to Toronto before dealing with this, because I’m running on little sleep and I want to get the courses that I’ve decided to take before I handle anything else.

August 9th, 6:28 AM:

August 9th, 6:45 AM: I ended up adding a Chang School course, CFRE 101, to my shopping cart, because by this point I’m beginning to wonder if the “C” in front of each course code is intentional and maybe this is a course-specific thing? Not sure… My connection drops. Refreshing or re-opening RAMSS presents me with the dropped connection message instead of the Student Centre. Oh no! This is what I was afraid of. I scroll through Twitter some more and use this time to seriously consider alternate courses, because I’m not finding Semiotics in the client, but I have hope because I still don’t really know how to work this thing for all the loading.

August 9th, 7:10 AM: I’m in! And to top it all off, I think I’ve figured out how to work this. After searching for a course by its course code (SEM 101), it started displaying courses in other letters, not just C. I manage to find a French course that fits in with my schedule that isn’t in the Chang School, so now all I have to do is find my other course.

August 9th, 7:30 AM: Hmm… Semiotics is listed, but no scheduled course times. I fall back on one of my other choices.

August 9th, 7:45 AM: Done, finally! I take a screenshot of my weekly schedule from the Student Centre, and I’m feeling satisfied with myself. So it’s not Semiotics, but I’m actually looking forward to Myth and Literature, which is something that I’ve been interested in since I was a kid who stumbled across Greek Mythology.

As for the French course… I did end up enrolling in FRE 201! Funny how that works, eh? Now I just need to take that placement test, which I’m super anxious for. I’ve always been good at French, but there’s something about not speaking it regularly for six years that makes you feel really rusty in a language. But hey – I’m totally hitting the books!