Registration Procedures
Language and Bridge/Introductory Courses
- All Spanish language and bridge courses taught in the Department of Spanish and Latin American Cultures are limited enrollment “L” courses, capped at 15 students. Please follow the Registrar’s instructions for “L” course signup.
A. Before classes start:
-When “L” courses are full, automated wait lists will open; instructors have no control over who registers for or drops the class, and they cannot add anybody. Should there be an opening, the first student on the wait list will be added by the system.
-When you preregister in the Spring for the Fall semester (and occasionally in the Fall for the Spring semester), you may see a course listed as full before it reaches 15 students. This is because we normally hold a certain number of places for incoming first-year and transfer students.
B. Once classes start:
-All classes are blocked, including those not officially full, and automated wait lists become self-managed. Nobody can register without attending class and getting the instructor´s permission even if the Directory of Classes shows that there is room.
-The Directory of Classes may not reflect the actual number of students registered for a particular section.
-Once classes start, a student’s position on a wait list on SSOL is not relevant anymore. Any spots that may open are reserved for students on the wait list who have kept perfect attendance from day one AND who meet the enrollment criteria for the Language Requirement.
-AFTER THE FIRST WEEK OF CLASS, instructors will eliminate from the list preregistered students who have failed to attend two class meetings, and anyone who does not meet the prerequisites. Only at this point will it be possible to know who can be allowed into the class. You MAY NOT register online without going through this wait list based on attendance, even if a system malfunction lets you. If you do, and there were other students higher on the wait list, you will be dropped.
-If you are a Barnard student preregistered in a Columbia section, please check your Columbia email account for messages from your instructor.
- Please be advised that having your name on the wait list for a Barnard or Columbia section of a Spanish course does not automatically guarantee your admittance.
- To reiterate, if you do not show up to the first two meetings of a class for which you are preregistered you will automatically be dropped from the class roster.
- While you are welcome to contact the Language Program Director to explain any special need for a course, please be advised that he cannot instruct faculty to bypass the wait list process, and in no case will a decision about admission be made before the first week of class has ended.
- If you absolutely NEED to take a language course on a particular semester (i.e. to meet study abroad program requirements or to complete requirements toward a degree), please be prepared to rearrange your schedule so that you can enter open sections. No exceptions to enrollment caps for a particular section will be made if there are other open sections of the course. We strongly advise you to anticipate as much as possible your study abroad and other requirements and to project and plan your language course needs accordingly.
- If, after following registration and wait list procedures, you are unable to place into a course, please send an email to the Language Program Director. It is useful to know if students are placed out of our courses, so that we can try to add more sections if needed in planning for subsequent semesters.
Language Program Director
María Eugenia Lozano
Milbank 209
Ext. 4-6065
mlozano@barnard.edu