That time of the semester...
January 18, 2012 11:02 AM   Subscribe

It's time to register for classes again. It is a pain trying to fill in all the time gaps in between classes, or to get them close enough together so I don't waste hours waiting for the next class to start. Is there a calculator out there where you could give them a list of possible classes in each subject so it could formulate the best schedule for me?

Does such a thing exist? I've tried googling "class schedule calculator" and it didn't come up with anything.
posted by squirtle to Education (6 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
I don't know of such a tool.

My best strategy has been to look at the long term (i.e. This is the list of classes I must take towards my degree). Some of these classes have prereqs, some are only offered in the spring or fall OR every other year. So I then prioritize -- in order to graduate by X date, I need to take French 200 next semester. You get a couple core classes this way, and then you can limit your search for other classes to the days/times adjacent to the core classes.
posted by DoubleLune at 11:12 AM on January 18, 2012


You'll have to enter classes by hand, unless you happen to be at Berkeley, but Final Distance is what you want. (I hope it still works properly, it's not seeming to load on the iPad right now.)
posted by hoyland at 11:13 AM on January 18, 2012 [1 favorite]


Oops... I misread. Final Distance is designed to be given a list of classes that you're going to take, with different possible meeting times for each class, and then tell you which sections to register for based on minimizing downtime. You can still use Final Distance, assuming you have groups of classes where you want to take one (eg a choice between course A and course B, list A and B together as one course with two possibilities).
posted by hoyland at 11:16 AM on January 18, 2012


Some clever people at UIUC ACM created Scheedule. Limited availability though.
posted by sbutler at 11:39 AM on January 18, 2012


Best answer: My university provides a tool that does this--it's just called the "schedule planner." You pick the courses you want (but not the sections) and it plans a variety of potential schedules and then allows you to look at the 3 it thinks are best. If you don't like what it comes up with, you can pick various kinds of criteria to change the schedules (like, I don't want any Friday classes, or don't show me any schedules with the 8:30am section, or whatever).

It doesn't list any kind of software vendor as its creator, though, so I'm guessing it's something the university cooked up on its own. (Our email, virtual classrooms, and registration system all at least state what outside companies created them, so that's why I think this is a homebrew.)
posted by asciident at 11:40 AM on January 18, 2012


Response by poster: I googled "schedule planner" and I came across myedu.com which has what I'm looking for. Thanks!
posted by squirtle at 11:50 AM on January 18, 2012 [4 favorites]


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