Dylan Finally Had a Schedule.
Dylan was awake and ready to register for classes a full hour before registration started. This, in itself, was impressive. He texted me while we both anxiously awaited the opening bell.
(There was no bell, really. That was just a figure of speech.)
Dylan’s schedule had been set, reset, revamped, and reset again, resulting in – we hoped – a handful of necessary credits that Dylan was hoping to actually enjoy. Best of all, he was prepping for a semester of sleeping right through any 8 a.m. classes that might be offered.
“While you’re waiting, you should look through the course catalog and just make sure there are no prerequisites for your classes,” I said.
“What’s a course catalog?” he said. (I had obviously done too much.)
A few minutes later he said, “I need the CRN numbers for these classes.”
“What’s a CRN?” I asked. (I had obviously not done enough.)
We got the CRN numbers; he listed them and got ready to hit “submit.”
But five minutes after registration began, Dylan texted me. “I got into all of my classes except Copyright Law,” he said. “That one was full. So I put in Intro to Music History and it gave me an error message. Now I don’t know what I’m going to take and all of the Copyright Law classes are full.”
Dylan and I worked together on this. It took about 20 minutes and a rehashing of the requirements for graduation, but when I realized that Public Relations was a Social Sciences course, I was elated.
“There’s one spot left in Public Relations!” I nearly squealed. “Get it! It’s the same time as Copyright Law and it will fit in perfectly!”
“What’s public relations?” Dylan asked.
“Just get it and I’ll tell you after!” I was panicked that he would be shut out of that one, too. It was like buying concert tickets for Mariah Carey or trying to win an auction on eBay for something utterly unique.
Two seconds went by.
“I’m in,” he said.
“Yay! That’s great!”
“Yeah, I have a schedule.”
“You have a schedule.” After only a month of playing around with the course catalog, and after accessing the wrong one and fixing the issue, and after Dylan’s hopping from one course to another as they filled up before his very eyes… Dylan finally had a schedule.
“So are you sure I need to take Public Relations?”
“I’m sure it’s one of the best options in the list of Social Sciences,” I said – having also convinced him along the way that Sociology was not a bad “-ology” to take.
“Okay,” he said. “So what is it?”
“It’s something everyone uses and it will be good to take no matter what career you have,” I started. And then, since my dad was a superstar in public relations for about 50 years, I explained to Dylan – to the best of my ability – the meaning of “public relations.”
And then I exhaled for the first time in three days.