Choosing your courses

Find out how you choose which courses to enrol in, and how you can get course advice.

This is a general guide to choosing your courses for undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Doctoral students should visit Doctoral enrolment.

Choosing your courses means spending some time looking at options and ensuring you’re making the right choices before you enrol.

Follow the five steps below to help you choose your courses:

1. Make sure you have the right courses for your programme

Avoid disappointment by making sure the courses you want to take will help you complete your degree. You don’t want to find out later that they do not fit the degree requirements and cannot be counted.

Helpful resources:

If you’ve checked your programme requirements and are still unsure of which courses you should be taking, you can get advice from Student Hubs

Make sure you understand the programme structure of your degree, including the General Education requirements.

2. Check your eligibility for enrolment

Check for any prerequisites, corequisites and restrictions before you enrol. You must meet these to enrol.

  • Prerequisite: A course or number of points you must have passed before you can enrol in a course. If you haven’t successfully completed a prerequisite, you can’t enrol into this course online.
  • Corequisite: A course you must take in the same semester as another course (unless you have previously passed the corequisite).
  • Restriction: A course which is so similar to another that you cannot take them both.

Any prerequisites, corequisites, or restrictions are indicated under the Course Catalogue on Student Services Online and in relevant faculty handbooks.

If you completed prerequisites before 1996, seek help from your faculty student centre, as pre-1996 course codes are not compatible with the online enrolment system.

3. Adding up the points

There is a maximum number of points you can enrol in each semester and each year. Your enrolment cannot exceed this limit.

For more information, see How many courses to enrol in.  

4. Check course availability

Some courses are only available during one semester, or they might not be offered this year. If the course you want is not available, you should select an alternative course that meets your programme requirements.

Find out what courses are available by visiting Browse Course Catalogue.

  • Open means places are available
  • Closed means there are no places available

5. Create a class timetable

Work out your timetable carefully before you enrol. Take into account all the classes shown on your enrolment timetable, including related classes such as tutorials or laboratories.

To help you work out a clash-free timetable, you can use Timetable Planner.

Resolving clashes

You cannot enrol in a class if it clashes with another class you are already enrolled in.

  • check if other streams are offered
  • make sure the course is not offered in another semester during the year
  • check which component (e.g. lecture, tutorial) is clashing, and how big the clash is.

With a small clash you may be able to approach the relevant department for permission to take both courses and miss time from the class concerned. This is called an enrolment concession and will be at the department’s discretion.

For more information, please see Enrolment concession.

For advice on any issues with your enrolment, see Issues with Enrolment.