I have a really hard time planning ahead. Sometimes, I?plan out my entire week in incredible detail, budgeting every minute of every day. Ultimately, though, these schedules are epic failures; I end up in an even more unproductive state than when I?started. Luckily for me, it was in the midst of one of my highly unproductive spells when I received the unsettling news that it's that time of year again: preregistration. How in the world was I supposed to think about next semester, when I can hardly think about what I will be having for dinner tonight?

Luckily, Brandeis provides us with a plethora of resources to successfully navigate the important preregistration process. We have access to past course syllabi, course evaluations, sage's degree audit and the wise counsel of fellow classmates. These resources are among the true benefits of attending a small liberal arts school that is really focused on the success of its undergraduate population.

However, as fortunate as we are to have the resources we do, they are far from perfect. The process of properly researching courses for preregistration can be stressful and cumbersome, and this can be attributed to faults in the system. The Office of the Provost and the Student Union-the two bodies that help manage the Course Evaluation Guide-can do an even better job in writing, presenting and managing it.

Before getting into the nitty gritty details of what can streamline the process (and risk putting you to sleep), it's important to put this issue in perspective. Because if preregistration wasn't valuable, this whole article would be a waste of space. The suggestions that follow aren't just a laundry list of demands; rather, they are real problems that Brandeis students should take to heart.

Enrolling in classes a semester early does a few things, including (but not limited to) aiding departments in seeing what courses interest students and helping students seriously plan their course load (instead of throwing it together haphazardly at the beginning of a semester). But perhaps more importantly, in light of recent fiscal problems at our university, preregistration helps show Brandeis that those small courses that seem to be financial burdens are worth keeping- if enough students sign up.

Having said all that, what follows are a few suggestions to ease the preregistration process and make it far less stressful.

For starters, the website has to be less hidden. While I cannot generalize for the entire student body, I would venture to guess that a sizeable number of students have not laid eyes on the course evaluation guide. In order to access the website, one would have to know that it is conveniently hidden in the bottom right corner of the Union website. Or alternatively, one would have to know to search (exactly) "Brandeis course evaluations" on Google (which doesn't even take you directly to the Course Evaluation Guide).

Instead, the course evaluations website should be linked directly to LATTE, where everything else relating to our courses is found (I would say it's a fair bet that traffic on the LATTE website is much heavier than on the Union's website). This would gain greater publicity for the guide and conveniently place it on the same website where syllabi are found, thus making it easier to bounce between syllabi and course reviews.

Secondly, course evaluations should be mandatory for every class. That is to say, in order to receive credit for any of courses, we should have to complete an evaluation. The completion rate last semester was an abysmal 57 percent, but it should have been 100 percent. There is absolutely no excuse why students should remove themselves from this highly important process. When students choose to not evaluate their courses, which evidently occurs quite often, it hurts the entire student body as well as faculty who try to better plan for courses offered in the future. Additionally, faculty members are often nominated for awards based on reviews written in the course evaluations. By not filling out course reviews for that amazing class you took, you may be depriving your professor of his or her well-earned award. The reviews suffer because they do not express a broad opinion, and the guide suffers as a whole because it is incomplete.

Let's be honest with ourselves here: While course reviews may involve some work, most students' choice not to do them has nothing to do with lack of time. The reason people do not evaluate their courses is sheer laziness. While the raffle that the Course Evaluation Committee organizes is creative (every student who completes his evaluations is entered into a raffle to win an iPod, among other items), it does not provide enough of an incentive (don't most of us have iPods anyway?).

If, however, we were obligated to evaluate our courses in order to receive credit, we would (maybe grudgingly) fill out the reviews and thereby benefit the entire Brandeis community.

Finally, midsemester evaluations should also be mandatory and incorporated into the overall review for a course. Many professors in large introductory lectures often offer questionnaires that seek to improve the quality of teaching. While there are no statistics kept on how many students fill out midsemester questionnaires-let alone how many classes actually offer them-I would venture to say that very few students complete them. These questionnaires, though, may be even more valuable than the standard course evaluations: They actually can affect our own classes, not just give advice to future students. In short, it wouldn't hinder our already busy lives to fill out brief course reviews twice in one semester. Teachers should be obligated to offer them, and students should have to fill them out.

I need not dwell on the value of course evaluations; many who take registration for classes seriously consult the online guide. The information provided can significantly affect course decisions. It gives students who know nothing about a professor a basic idea of what to expect, as well as information about the class itself and the workload. While the points above may seem too technical and unnecessary, they would go a long way toward perfecting the invaluable guide and, ultimately, our education.