I heard an international student was surprised by their friends on the morning of course registration. Everyone was just staring at the clock in the corner of their screen. "It hasn't even started yet, so why are you so nervous?" For Korean university students, this day is a small war. ## Seats are few, and it's first come, first served Popular classes have a fixed number of seats. There's the size of the lecture hall, and there's also a limit to how many people one professor can teach, so it's hard to increase the number as we please. Many more students want to take the class than that. So many schools give seats to those who apply first. That's because they see it as a way to give everyone the same chance. Instead, seats disappear within a few seconds of each other. ## Why Do We Look at "Server Time"? My computer's clock can be a few seconds off from the school server's clock. By my clock it's exactly the hour, but on the server it might not have opened yet, or it might have already opened. So students click while watching the server time shown on the school website. When a lot of people log in at once, the site can also slow down, which makes them even more anxious. ## Why There Is a Practice Period Because of experiences like this, some schools set up a period when students can practice. Some schools also give you a period to add the classes you want to take to a wishlist in advance. The names and methods differ from school to school. Be sure to check your school's announcements or academic calendar. Here's what you can do right away. The day before course registration, check that you can log in, and write down the names and numbers of the classes you want to take. It's also a good idea to decide on a second class to sign up for right away in case the first one fills up.