This article provides helpful instructions and best practices for searching for courses and sections in the new Self-Service
Log into Self-Service.
Navigate to Course Search, either by…
selecting the Course Search tile on the home page
selecting the triple bar menu icon in the top left, and then selecting Registration & Records and then Course Search.
You’ll automatically be taken to Advanced Search (recommended way to search for Sections).
You can filter by Term, Subject, and Academic Level, and then click Search at the bottom.
A table of Sections will appear.
Click the blue underlined Section Name (e.g., BUS.1000-A) to view section details like meeting times. Or, scroll to the right to see many more details on the section.
The Status column indicates whether a Section is open for enrollment or if it is full and only accepting students to a waitlist.
The Availability column shows the number of “available seats / total seats in all cross-listed sections / waitlisted students”, in that format. So, 3 / 10 / 0 would mean there are 3 more seats available in that section, with a capacity of 10 seats between all the cross-listed sections, and 0 students on the waitlist for that section. Mouse over or tap the blue information icon to see a legend as a reminder.
On the left are a number of filters you can use, including Instructors and Course Types.
Click the blue Add button to add a Section in your cart.
- Repeat this for all Sections you want to add to your cart**.**
- Use Back to Course Search to return to the search page and apply different filters.
You can also search by Subject to search for Courses primarily and Sections secondarily.
Back on the Course Search page, select the “Subject Search” tab to open up the Subject Search option.
Subjects represent the 3-letter prefixes (e.g., Biblical Counseling = “BCO”).
These results will provide a list of Courses in the catalog, but you can expand a course to see available Sections.
Select Add Course to Plan to plan ahead without selecting a section, or select Add Section to Cart to register for a specific Section.
Subject Search is a great way to search the entire course catalog to see Courses’ descriptions, prerequisites, and typical schedule.
Because Subject Search does contain Sections nested in the Courses, there are filters on the left side, very similar to the Advanced Search page.
Lastly, you can search for courses using the “Search for courses…” field in the top right of most pages.
This will take you to a version of Subject Search, prioritizing Courses that are expandable to show Sections. However, it also shows every possible Course, including some “internal use only” Courses, like placeholder elective transfer credit Courses.
The “Search for courses…” field is best used when searching for a particular Course.
This search field is also helpful for searching quickly, as it doesn’t require a specific format and is readily available on most pages.
- For instance, searching BCO, bco55, bco 5, bco5500, or BCO.5500 would all show results that could help you find BCO.5500 Course details and any Section offerings.
- You can search by the Course name (e.g., bib couns, biblical counseling, or biblical).
- This tool also searches course descriptions (e.g., hermeneutical results in BTI.5100 Hermeneutics, but also other courses with course descriptions that mention hermeneutics).
Overall, the 'Search for courses…' field is both fast and comprehensive, making it ideal when you know exactly what you're looking for or are simply exploring available courses.