<p>I've fallen madly in love with the FYS Underworlds (and Otherworlds). Joseph Campell, Virgil, everything I've always wanted to study. But there's a huge waiting list: is it common for students to get in off the waiting list, would professors be turned off if you tried to contact them and is there anything that can be done? Help please </p>
<p>I’m a first-year as well. I recommend just emailing the professor and saying how interested you are in the class. I was really really into a class that was full, so I just sent an email and the prof requested I be taken off the waitlist.</p>
<p>what if you don’t know the professor’s email? By the way, what’s the point, first year students need to meet with their academic advisors to discuss the classes so you shouldn’t email the professor and then find out you can’t take that class anyways. I prefer to wait and discuss it w/ my academic advisors first and discuss further matter.</p>
<p>Their emails are on the website where you sign up for classes. And it’s a FYS, so I doubt the advisor is going to say “No way, this course is too tough for your first year.”</p>
<p>Your adviser isn’t going to tell you what classes you can/cannot take. He/she will talk to you to gage your interest in certain subjects and to help you figure out if you really want to take the classes you’ve registered for. A professor will never bar you from taking a class. Anonymous456, you have the wrong idea as per what academic advisers at MHC actually do. You should definitely e-mail the professor and ask if there’s anyway you can be let in the class. You get professor’s e-mail addresses on webshell, which is on the Mount Holyoke e-mail system.</p>
<p>I thought FY seminars were capped at 16, and the wait list for Underworlds and Other Worlds is 16, so there’s no way the prof. can let them all in.</p>
<p>I was talking more about what Anonymous was saying, how the professor would bar her from taking a class. That situation would never happen. However, a lot of professors do not listen to that whole waitlist thing, and many students will fix around their schedules and drop classes. I was once waitlisted for a class that originally was supposed to have 10 people in it. There were 20 of us in the class. </p>
<p>Professors bend over backwards to give you an opportunity to take a class. Try to take advantage of it. If you have any other questions, you can ask me (either via PM or via thread).</p>
<p>what if it’s a PE class like swimming that I got waitlisted for and I really want to take that PE class…Can I email the instructor and tell him/her that I am really interested in that? Do they have emails for instructors who teaches PE classes?</p>
<p>redrose12,</p>
<p>DEFINITELY e-mail your professor to express your interest. Where are you on the waitlist? If you are within the first 5 names on the list, you stand a very good shot of getting into the course. While the majority of regular-class professors are likely to tell you to come to the class and wait it out, FYS professors tend to be very understanding and helpful. Chances are, if you express interest and attend the first couple of meetings of the class, you’ll be able to get in. Don’t fret!</p>
<p>Anonymous,</p>
<p>Unfortunately, PE classes are the one course type where getting off the waitlist into the class is really difficult. It truthfully won’t help to e-mail the instructor, as most of these courses are offered every semester multiple times. If you for some reason have an incredibly vested interest in Beginning Swimming, go to the Directories page from the MHC main website, then search in the Faculty and Staff Directory for your instructor’s last name (his/her e-mail and phone extension will be there). If you can’t manage to get into a PE class and are worried about your fitness level, e-mail either Ellen Perella (Head Athletic Trainer) or Pete Olsen (Assistant Athletic Trainer) when you get on campus and see if you can make an appointment to talk about a self-scheduled fitness program.</p>
<p>To everyone, don’t worry too much: contrary to most colleges, the majority of faculty and staff members (with a few departmental exceptions) at MHC are wonderfully helpful!</p>
<p>What exactly did you tell the professor in the e-mail? Help me please!! Thanks!</p>