University of Hawaii at Manoa Top Questions

Students mostly complain about two things: registration and advising. The registration system is frustrating and mostly benefits the upper-level students. Lower level students are basically forced to choose from the classes that everyone else didn't want, and sometimes those courses are not even the ones the lower-level students need. The best way to handle the registration system, in my experience, is to sign up for any classes, and if you cannot get into the courses you want, go to the teachers of that course in the early days of the semester to ask for an override so you can register for that course. Advising, at least for Arts & Sciences students, is pretty awful. You can only make appointments for 9am-430pm the same day, and they take appointments beginning at 815am. Generally the appointments are filled by 10am or earlier, depending on the time in the semester. Students are forced to fill out paperwork with information from their transcript which is already online - this is basically intended to make sure you know what you have left in your studies, but all of that is covered in the online transcript. Before you can register for graduation, you have to complete another similar load of paperwork, which is more arbitrary than anything else.

Students mostly complain about two things: registration and advising. The registration system is frustrating and mostly benefits the upper-level students. Lower level students are basically forced to choose from the classes that everyone else didn't want, and sometimes those courses are not even the ones the lower-level students need. The best way to handle the registration system, in my experience, is to sign up for any classes, and if you cannot get into the courses you want, go to the teachers of that course in the early days of the semester to ask for an override so you can register for that course. Advising, at least for Arts & Sciences students, is pretty awful. You can only make appointments for 9am-430pm the same day, and they take appointments beginning at 815am. Generally the appointments are filled by 10am or earlier, depending on the time in the semester. Students are forced to fill out paperwork with information from their transcript which is already online - this is basically intended to make sure you know what you have left in your studies, but all of that is covered in the online transcript. Before you can register for graduation, you have to complete another similar load of paperwork, which is more arbitrary than anything else.