Juliet McDermott

For the first time, rising juniors and seniors used the Workday class registration system to create their class schedules for the fall 2025 semester this past week. The registration window for rising seniors opened at 7 a.m. on Monday, and 7 a.m. on Thursday for rising juniors. The registration window for rising sophomores will open this upcoming Tuesday at 7 a.m.

This new system is a departure from the previous class registration system on Polaris with rising seniors selecting classes first followed by juniors and sophomores in a “first-come, first-served” basis. Many students set alarms to pick classes quickly to optimize their chances of getting the classes they want. Emma Mazlish ’26 commented on this change.

“[When I was looking at Bowdoin], I feel like I was very attracted to the idea that everyone registers at the same time, and it wasn’t first-come, first-serve…. So [Workday] is definitely different,” Mazlish said.

Some students also encountered minor hitches in the registration process, such as having classes in saved schedules disappear without notice or facing confusion in how to proceed when they were waitlisted.

“One of my classes got removed from my saved schedule because the class got canceled, and I didn’t get a notification. So I went to register, and it was just not there, which, when you just woke up at like 6:45 a.m., and you’re going through a new system of registering for classes, is frustrating,” Logan Mulkerin ’26 said.

Other issues included Workday taking time to reload, which Mulkerin hoped would be looked into for future registrations.

“I spoke to some other people who had the same experience—I hit refresh, and it refreshed for a minute straight, which was nerve-wracking,” Mulkerin said. “I don’t know if that was a Wi-Fi thing, or everyone logging onto Workday at the same time, so [the server] got overwhelmed. That could be nice to troubleshoot.”

Still, Mazlish thought that the registration went more smoothly than most students expected.

“I think that there was a general consensus that we were all a little bit anti-Workday, just because—mostly the seniors that I talked to—were very used to Polaris,” Mazlish said. “But I think that there’s a general consensus that it wasn’t as bad as [many] thought it was going to be and students are pretty okay with it. So I feel like we’re transitioning, but I think it’s probably good in the long run.”

This sentiment was echoed not only by students but by professors as well. Beyond noting that the transition to the new system went better than expected, Associate Professor of Mathematics Jack O’Brien highlighted improvements compared to its predecessor.

“[Workday] certainly made things like approving students [that] don’t quite have the prerequisites, or, if they took a class abroad, or something like that … relatively easy,” O’Brien said. “What it does, which Polaris did not, is it sends you an email in advance,… so you [don’t] get a crush of students who are like, ‘I need to get this prereq here.’ That’s an improvement.”

An additional feature of the new system that students appreciated was the expedited registration process, in which the registration results were available immediately.

“I did really like that I didn’t have to wait multiple days to find out what classes I got and didn’t have to do a second round of registration, because sometimes that [process] can be a looming source of anxiety when you don’t know your classes for the next year,” Mary Rainey ’27 said.

Looking forward, Rainey suggested a more wide-ranging Workday training for students would further ease the transition.

“Maybe making attending one of the course registration classes mandatory [could be helpful], because I know that they have resources, but it’s hard to get busy college students to dedicate an hour or so of their life voluntarily. I had to do [Workday] training for Reslife, and I really think that that made a big difference,” Rainey said. “It would be helpful if everyone had the same training and if it was mandated by the school.”