CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo., March 2, 2016 Southeast Missouri State University senior Alison Bay of St. Louis, Missouri, says a new Schedule Planner tool now available to students will help streamline the process as they begin planning their fall course schedules.
As an upperclassman, it helps you plan around work and other things,” said Bay, a double major in psychology and criminal justice.
Southeast Missouri State Universitys Office of the Registrar has launched the new Schedule Planner available from the portal at portal.semo.edu. The new tool is designed to help students, faculty and advisors in putting together the right combination of courses to meet students needs as they plan their schedule for future semesters.
Bay said she used to hand-write out possible schedule combinations, but is thrilled with the new schedule planner that can do the coordination on its own.
When youre a freshman there are a ton of classes you can take and a lot of wiggle room, so it should just help them see what options they have, she said.
Southeast junior Kaitlynn Lanciault, a health management major from Festus, Missouri, agreed.
For freshmen and sophomores, they can really plan out their schedule with the new tool, she said. This lets you see all of your options, which is really nice. It has the potential to be really helpful.
Karie Stroder, an academic advisor in the South Advising Center, says, Right now, it is fairly new to our campus, but the technology is really remarkable.
She says students are able to tell Schedule Planner the classes they want for the fall and the system generates all possible class schedules, as opposed to the student looking up each class time.
At the same time, students can input any breaks in their schedule where they want to avoid class times — such as a job, observation hours, athletic practice or even personal preference. Schedule Planner will then generate all possible schedule options for that student while avoiding class times during their breaks, Stroder said. The student can browse through the various options and select the option he or she wants. Schedule Planner operates very similar to online shopping as students will select the course options they want and add them to their cart.
Stroder added, The technology will allow students and advisors to create schedules with much more ease.
Students can find Schedule Planner in Registration Tools under the SS Student tab. Students can then select the semester and campus for the classes they want. From there, it allows users to select various courses they plan on taking. It also offers the option to schedule breaks at times when they are unable to attend classes.
After selecting specific courses and breaks, there is a generate schedules button that shows various class schedules that will work with the users availability. After reviewing those options, a schedule can be selected and placed in an online shopping cart. Users are then redirected to the course registration portion of the portal to register for the specific courses and times selected through the planner.
Registrar Sandy Hinkle said, Its a really fantastic and useful product for our students to use to help narrow down class options and times.
Instructions for using the Schedule Planner are available at http://www.semo.edu/pdf/Registrar-Schedule_Instructions_for_Students.pdf.