Freshmen Make the Call as CSUN Kicks Off Registration Season

A noontime jazz concert on the Cal State Northridge campus Wednesday passed almost unnoticed by students as 2,000 freshmen spent the day listening to a newly important form of electronic music: computerized telephone beeps signaling crucial registration victories and defeats.

Freshmen on Wednesday were the first in line to register for fall classes, using telephones to sign up for courses by calling a school computer and pushing touch-tone keys to make their selections. School officials said that by late afternoon about 4,600 registration calls had been received, most of them from students calling from home.

Being first has become an important advantage now that CSUN has canceled more than 800 of its 5,600 or so fall courses in anticipation of state budget cuts. But even with fewer classes, most freshmen will probably get most of their choices, campus officials said.

Over the next three weeks, about 27,000 of the school’s expected 30,000 students are scheduled to register for courses using the computerized system, which provides students with 100 telephone lines and about 10 minutes per call to arrange their schedule. Because of class cancellations, many students, particularly juniors and seniors, are expected to be unable to get the classes they need to graduate on schedule.

Christina West, a Granada Hills High School graduate, was one of the lucky ones Wednesday who got all four classes she selected. It took two telephone calls from a student counseling office on campus, but the 17-year-old freshman successfully enrolled in introductory biology, English, history and political science.

“That’s a relief,” said West, who plans to major in biology. “I enrolled late and I thought I was going to have to wait until the end of registration; then I probably wouldn’t have gotten any classes.”

Freshman Leyo Lopez also had to call twice to get the two art classes he wanted, as well as a Chicano studies class. He was still punching phone buttons in the counselor’s office late Wednesday to find a fourth class to fit his schedule. The system allows students to call as many times as they need during the day they are scheduled to register.

“That was pretty easy,” Lopez said.

Meanwhile, concerned upperclassmen pored over a posted list of remaining fall classes Wednesday, worried that by the time they register, those classes will be filled.

“I made up three different schedules,” said junior Leonard Fisher, 20, who gathered with classmates in the school’s administration lobby to check the list. “So far, everything looks cool. I just hope my classes aren’t filled by the time I register next week.”

Academic advisers said the real scheduling crunch will begin next week, when classes start closing and students are left with fewer choices.

Even on the first day of registration, some freshmen were running into trouble, academic counselors said.

“So far, the freshmen were getting 80% of what they wanted, but that is still impacting some of them who have jobs,” said Jose Luis Vargas, director of a school program to assist minority and low-income students. “Some employers are accommodating and some are very frank and say, ‘If you can’t work these hours, I’ll find somebody who will.’ ”