Remembering the Nightmarish Rite That Was UT Registration (Slideshow)
Back in the stone age, before the World Wide Web and even before the TEX phone system, there was a hellish biannual rite of passage for UT students known as registration.
It was done in the hellish heat of Gregory Gym and, later, in the hellish vastness of the Erwin Center. You waited in line for a class and if when you got to the front the class was full, you had to go wait in some other line for some other class.
Course catalogs were for sale in vending machines, and you actually had to flip through it to find a class — there was no Control-F feature. Few UT experiences were so soul-crushing.
To commemorate the students returning to campus this week, we dug into the archives to uncover some scenes from those nightmarish times of decades past.
Today’s students couldn’t possibly imagine. Ah, you hyper-digital 19-year-olds, it must have been rough for you to register from your iPhone while on vacation in the Bahamas.
Were you forced to wait in these interminable lines? Did it make you tougher? Is that you in the short shorts?
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20 Comments
I was almost sorry that my niece missed this experience in her 2004-2008 UT experience.
I was a member of GDE and worked as security on the doors. Since there were 2 of you at a door, this allowed you free access to the floor to watch for an opening in the class you wanted. There is always a way around a line.
Oh yes, I remember the joy of the Erwin Center quite well. Talk about learning quickly about bureaucracy and patience in long lines!! If you can make it through that, you’re ready for a lot of what life throws at you!
Centralized Adds and Drops at the Erwin Center…What a better way to waste at least 8 hours standing in line to add a stupid history or English course only to get to the head of the line to find that all classes were filled? I think new students should share in this great experience!!!!!!
UT Class of ’87
Geophysics
Any of you who missed registering at the old Erwin Center don’t know the true meaning of *hell*! The pictures of the girls in dresses truly brought it into full focus. There really is NO way to fully describe the experience to anyone who wasn’t there. Just be grateful!
Oh yes, one of the reasons I got into Pharmacy was because Pharmacy registration had some of the shortest lines in Gregory Gym.
It was pretty bad, but once you made it through, you felt like you could survive anything! I always felt sorry for the people working there–they had lots of tired and frustrated people up in their faces. They all kept their cool, though–job well done!
I registered for the first time in the very hot Gregory Gym in September 1967. I remember wearing a coat and tie for such an auspicious occasion. Like so many others, when I got to the head of my first line, the class was full. So, back to my adviser to find another class. Then I spent two months working for Dean of Students Margaret Peck alphabetizing by hand some 32,000 yellow student information cards. Great fun. Great memories.
What? No fun pics of registration days at Bellmont Hall? The line began at the bottom, and spiraled s-l-o-w-l-y up the shaded but unairconditioned ramps. Once inside, same chaos as Gregory Gym. The Erwin Center did provide more space for the chaos. During the Bellmont days, seems like we registered there, then trudged over to Gregory to have IDs made. Opportunities to learn life lessons in patience, persistence, and all manners of hoop-jumping were abundant…and that was just registration. Nietzsche nailed it: That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Hook ‘em.
Somewhere I have my UT photo ID card (taken after a full day inside Gregory Gym in September, 1970 with NO air conditioning). I looked like a concentration camp victim. Those were the days.
In the early to mid ’70s, registration at Gregory Gym was a nightmare (especially in the summer!!) but one that is now a great "war" story to tell my kids (who had it SO EASY with electronic registration in the past few years). But it also "fun" to use the red trays from the Jester cafeteria to slide down the hills on campus when we had snow. Oh the memories…..
I still have nightmares about Adds and Drops. First at Gregory, then at the Erwin Center.
I was part of the group that first went to the Frank Irwin Center (FIC) for adds and drops then to Gregory for IDs in the early 80′s. One of lost "classes". Lines, lines, and more lines. And Advisor, what advisor, someone got an actual advisor? I graduated a semester late for want of one class. I returned in the 90′s for a graduate degree to learn of "phone-in" registration. Way to easy and efficient. I’m sure it is all by computer’s now. It definitely made me more agressive about getting what I needed from staff when I went for my master’s.
Oh, I remember those days well! Veteran of Erwin Center registration and centralized adds/drops from the 1980s, pre-TEX years!! And I remember one year being behind the registration table (I think some of the Orientation Advisors volunteered to help with registration later in the summer). Those young’uns today don’t know how good they have it: smartphones, laptops and netbooks, cable in Jester.
College of Ed, 1988, Liberal Arts, 1990
In the mid 50′s hating lines so much I declared my major as anthropology even though it was eco and govt, but only to make my registration less painful since there were only a handful of anthropology majors. I signed a scribble for advisor permission to take various courses which I needed for my degree. And all of that trouble was just to reduce the registration nightmare! The old days were not necessarily the best of days…
I just love reading the memories from UT. It really brings it back to life for me now.
My sister (3 years older) got me into the Erwin Center Adds & Drops volunteer crew my freshman year. I knew from then on that volunteering was the way to get what you want.
I thank her today for her direction.
Kids today do encounter things we did not, but memories of the ‘computer lab’ & testing centers are vivid today.
Where are those pictures?
I am a Psychology major and a Government minor only because that was all that was left after several circles around the drum. What a nightmare b
It was so hot and so crowded in Gregory Gym,I remember lots of "mooing" in Gregory Gym. It did feel like we were cattle.
It was so hot and crowded in Gregory Gym I remember lots of "mooing". Felt like we were cattle.
Doesn’t anyone remember registering at Darryl K Royal Stadium ? I think they had just upgraded the west side, etc. That was 1975, I think. So roomy, it went fairly fast, took only a couple of hours.
Oh yes, I remember it well–the waiting in line. On the positive side, through that waiting I was recruited into the UT Young Democrats. I joined in 1962 and remained a member into the ’70s. We got caught up in all the issues of the times. Free Speech, Civil Rights, Anti-War, and Feminism filled the agenda.
I doubt that I learned more in the classes than I did through those heady times. I have more vivid memories of those meetings, debates, conferences, conventions, endorsement meetings, picket lines and demonstrations than anything taught in class. And through it all I made dear lifelong friends.