Before classes start
- Check your Fall final marks as they post. If a Winter course needs a Fall course you didn't pass, sort out your enrolment straight away; it's easier in the first week than the third.
- Confirm your Winter timetable. Rooms and times change in January, full-year courses included.
- Clear finished Fall courses out of your calendar and to-do list, so January's work isn't mixed in with courses that are over.
Week one, with the outlines in hand
- Download every Winter outline. For full-year courses, check whether there's a new outline or an updated schedule for the second half rather than assuming the September one still holds.
- Use this year's outline, never last year's. Weights and test dates change from year to year even when the course code doesn't.
- Put every graded item, with its weight, on one calendar. All courses, one place.
- Find the Winter add/drop date. It usually falls in the first week or two of classes, so there is very little time to swap a course you already dislike.
- Check for a textbook opt-out deadline again. A new course is a new automatic charge.
- If you subscribed to your LMS calendar feed in the fall, check the Winter courses appear in it. A feed set up for single courses won't pick up new ones.
The two things that catch people in Winter
Tests come sooner than they feel. With a reading week in February at most Ontario universities, first midterms often land in late January or the first days of February, three or four weeks in. Look for them in week one, not week three.
The withdrawal deadline is a different date from the fall's. It's the last day to leave a course without a failing grade, and your registrar publishes it with the term's other dates. Write it down now while it doesn't matter.
If you used SyllaBuddy in the Fall
Once the Fall term's end date has passed, Today offers to start a new term. Untick the courses that are finished and they move to a Past terms list on You, marks and all, so Today and your calendar stop showing them. Full-year courses are ticked to carry on by default. Then upload the Winter outlines.
New to it? Upload your Winter outlines and the calendar, daily list and Google Calendar feed come from them. It's free for students while it's new.
Questions
Do full-year courses get a new outline in January?
Sometimes. Some instructors issue a separate Winter outline, others keep one outline for the year and update the schedule. Check your LMS and the course page in the first week either way.
When is the last day to add a Winter course?
Usually within the first week or two of classes. Your registrar's sessional dates list it, along with the withdrawal deadline, which comes much later in the term.
What should I do in the first week of the Winter semester?
Get every outline, put every graded item and its weight on one calendar, note the add/drop, opt-out and withdrawal dates, and find your first midterm. That's an hour of work that saves the whole term.