CityU Secrets Presents: Add/Drop Guide for New Students

Version 3.1 (August 2015)

The add drop process is probably one of the most exciting moments of your time in CityU.

Having said that, you have to prepare well to experience the excitement – or else you would

regret not having done enough to get a good timetable.

Contents

A. How to get your personalised timetable ..................................................................................... 2

B. How to read the personalised timetable ..................................................................................... 6

C. How to login to Master Class Schedule ........................................................................................ 7

D. How to look up a course in the Master Class Schedule ........................................................... 10

E. Add/drop process and Wait-listing ............................................................................................. 16

What should I add – 4-year curriculum New Students READ THIS! ......................................... 20

Wait-listing ..................................................................................................................................... 24

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A. How to get your personalised timetable

The add drop process should start with your personalised timetable. Once you have done

the enrolment, you will be able to see your timetable on AIMS. Follow the steps to check it

out.

1. Go to CityU website on www.cityu.edu.hk.

Hover the cursor on ‘Quick Links’ and click ‘AIMS’ (as circled).

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2. Type your Electronic ID (EID; not to be confused with SID, which is Student ID) and

password at the log-in page.

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3. After logging in you should see the following screen. Click on “Course Registration”,

then “Weekly Schedule.”

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4. Select the relevant term. In this case, select “Semester A 2013/14.”

5. You would see the timetable like this – of course, you may have been registered with

different courses.

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B. How to read the personalised timetable

Initially you may understand nothing in this timetable. What is 15974? What is T01?

- 15974 is the CRN (Course Reference Number). CRN is a unique number for the

particular section of a course. If there is more than one section for a certain course,

they would have different CRNs.

- CLA2406 is the Course Code. In this case, CLA refers to College of Liberal Arts and Social

Sciences, and this course is called Intensive French 1 and 2.

- T01 refers to the section number. Here, T is for Tutorial. Usually there are lectures (C)

and tutorials (T) for a course, or sometimes they will be merged into seminars (S).

- AC3 6-211 refers to the venue of the section, i.e. Room 6-211 of Academic 3 (AC3). If

there are multiple venues for the course, the box will be in pink, but not yellow.

See http://www6.cityu.edu.hk/arro/content.asp?cid=157 for more details.

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C. How to login to Master Class Schedule

To look up a course, this involves the use of Master Class Schedule. This is a useful way in

planning your best timetable. To see the Master Class Schedule, you can opt for either ways

to do so.

a. Direct link – Click here:

https://banweb.cityu.edu.hk/pls/PROD/twgkpswd_cityu.P_WWWLogin?to_url=hwscrss

h_cityu.P_SelTerm

Enter your EID and password as you see the login page for AIMS.

b. Through Portal

1. In the homepage of CityU, hover the cursor on ‘Quick Links’ and click ‘Portal’ (as

circled).

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2. Log in to Portal by entering your EID and password.

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3. After logging in, click on ‘Student’ tab then expand the ‘Academic Services’ section.

Then click ‘Master Class Schedule’.

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D. How to look up a course in the Master Class Schedule

1. Once you have logged in to the Master Class Schedule, select the desired term. In this

case, select “Semester A 2013/14.”

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2. Select the appropriate criteria to narrow down the scope for searching of courses.

(Recommended settings: by level and by subject)

If you prefer not to use a certain criterion, you may leave that selection in “<all>.”

In this case, we use English (EN courses of Department of English) as the example.

(Ignore these – click nothing here.)

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NB You can also select multiple choices in different fields. Tap on CTRL button as you

click on the name of the academic unit/subject area.

3. You should see a list of courses. Click on any of the courses on its course code or

course title.

We will take EN2711 and EN2717 as examples.

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4. You should see that EN2711 and EN2717 have some difference in terms of

composition of sections.

For EN2711, there are two sections of lectures, namely C01 and CN1, for the two

undergraduate programmes of Department of English. Depending on what

programme you are in, you can only add into either of the sections.

Use the CRNs in the add drop process.

For EN2717, there are five sections, including C01 (lecture) and T01-T04 (tutorial). In

this case, when you are doing the add/drop process, you need to pair up the lecture

and tutorial, i.e.

C01 + T01 or T02 or T03 or T04

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5. In some cases, there are even more to do.

In this course, EE3110, there are ten sections, including C01, CA1 (lectures), L01-L03,

LA1 (laboratory sessions), T01-T03 and TA1 (tutorial). When you are adding this

course, you need to be aware that some sections cannot be added together.

For example,

• C01 + L01 + T01 okay

• C02 + L02 + T02 okay

• C02 + L03 + T01 okay

• C01 + L02 + T03 okay

• CA1 + LA1 + TA1 okay

• C01 + LA1 + T02 not okay – there will be a LINK ERROR

• CA1 + L02 + TA1 not okay – there will be a LINK ERROR

Please refer to later sections on how to do add/drop.

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6. The course catalogue is an introduction to a certain course that would let you have a

glance on what the course is about, its assessment and assignment weighting and

many more.

You can also check how many students have added a course. Click on “Click here for

registration detail” to see this.

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E. Add/drop process and Wait-listing

The add drop process is one of the most exciting yet tedious process. You can make it so

smooth – but at the same time it could also be so irritating.

Follow the steps below to make it a smoother journey.

1. Log in to AIMS by entering your EID and password.

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2. Click on the “Course Registration” tab, then click “Select Term” to select the right term.

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3. You will return to “Course Registration” page. Check your add/drop time slot by clicking “Registration Status and Time Ticket” to see when you will need to do the add/drop.

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4. In the designated add/drop time slot, do the add/drop process. Click ‘Add or Drop Classes’ to Add Courses. Enter the relevant CRN(s) in this form and click the ‘Submit Changes’ button.

If you wish to drop a course, select “Web drop” in the pull-down menu when you click on the “Action” for that course. See http://www6.cityu.edu.hk/arro/content.asp?cid=155 for more details.

20 | P a g e CityU Secrets Presents: Add/Drop Guide for New Students What should I add – 4-year curriculum New Students READ THIS! Other than law (1061), computer science (1204) and computing mathematics (1206) students,

all first-year students at CityU do not have majors. They need to grasp the opportunity to

gain a cumulative grade point average (CGPA) that is as high as possible to get into their

desired majors (TO BE THE TOP 20/40%!). To gain a high CGPA for the first 2 semesters, a

tactic choice of courses is needed.

When you first see your personalised timetable you should be aware that you are

pre-registered with College/School Core Courses or College/School Requirements

(CLA1002/CB2201/BCH1100/MA1200 etc.) and also an English course – it could be either

University English (GE1401) or English for Academic Purposes (EL0200).

(GE1401 or EL0200? Click here: http://www.cityu.edu.hk/elc/courses_who.html)

Now you got 6 to 9 credits in your timetable. The thing you need to think is that how you can

choose the right courses to fill up the timetable into 15 to 18 credits – and do the same in

the next semester, since your CGPA would decide what major you can be in next year.

Most probably you would choose Gateway Education (GE) courses to do so. GE courses are

similar to common core (CC) courses that you can see in other universities, which aim at

providing students a way in understanding more beyond their (potential) majors.

Consider the following flow as a reference for you to choose the right course. (see next page)

NB1 College/School-specified courses are not the same as College/School Requirements.

NB2 Although College/School-specified courses are listed as part of GE courses, in terms of

add/drop schedule they would follow the add/drop schedule of other courses, not GE

courses.

21 | P a g e CityU Secrets Presents: Add/Drop Guide for New Students

1. Look for the Master Class Schedule for GE courses that are available in the required

semester. When choosing the subject, do remember to select “Gateway Education”

(as circled).

For the instructions on how to look up a course in the Master Class Schedule, see page 9

(D. How to look up a course in the Master Class Schedule).

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2. After searching for a course, have a look on the course catalogue to see what the

course curriculum is about.

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3. Consider the comments and recommendations from past students on the GE

courses on CityU GE Guide. (only in Chinese)

Website: http://cityuge.swiftzer.net/

(Disclaimer: CityU Secrets is not responsible for content of external sites.)

24 | P a g e CityU Secrets Presents: Add/Drop Guide for New Students Wait-listing The wait-listing process is introduced in Semester B 2012/13 in view of the great demand for

Gateway Education (GE) courses. Students could add themselves to waitlists on course

sections which are full. When seats are made available after other students drop the course

sections, the system will register students into the course sections according to the student's

position in the waitlist queue on a first-come, first-served basis. Other than GE courses, some

courses in other academic departments also support wait-listing.

Situation 1

- If the course section entered is full (i.e. closed) and there is waitlist quota available, an

error message ‘Closed – N Waitlisted’ is displayed (‘N’ denotes the number of students

on the waitlist).

- You may select ‘Waitlist’ from the ‘Action’ box to add yourself to the waitlist and then

click ‘Submit Changes’ to complete the process.

(Courtesy: Academic Regulations and Records Office)

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- The waitlisted CRN is shown on your ‘Current Schedule’ for successful attempt.

(Courtesy: Academic Regulations and Records Office)

- Details of the waitlisted course (together with your position in the waitlist queue) can also be found in your detail schedule. You may click ‘My Detail Schedule’ under the ‘Course Registration’ menu to view it.

(Courtesy: Academic Regulations and Records Office)

26 | P a g e CityU Secrets Presents: Add/Drop Guide for New Students Situation 2

- If the course section entered is full and there is no remaining waitlist quota, an error message ‘Closed – Waitlist Full’ is displayed and you cannot add yourself to the waitlist.

(Courtesy: Academic Regulations and Records Office)

27 | P a g e CityU Secrets Presents: Add/Drop Guide for New Students Situation 3

- If the course section entered is not full (i.e. open) but the available seats are reserved for waitlisted students, an error message ‘Open – Reserved for Waitlist’ is displayed.

- You may select ‘Waitlist’ from the ‘Action’ box to add yourself to the waitlist and then click the ‘Submit Changes’ button.

(Courtesy: Academic Regulations and Records Office)

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- If there is waitlist quota available, the waitlisted CRN is shown on your ‘Current Schedule’ for successful attempt.

(Courtesy: Academic Regulations and Records Office)

- If there is no remaining waitlist quota, an error message ‘Open – Waitlist Full’ is displayed.

See http://www6.cityu.edu.hk/arro/content.asp?cid=155#waitlisting for more information.