By Amanda Lagoe, Assistant Registrar 

You’ve decided to register for the upcoming term and have accessed the Registration and Course Offerings page. You have two options for searching for classes: Browse Term Guide and Browse Course Catalog. What’s the difference? Which one should you choose? If you’re unsure, the Office of the Registrar can set the record straight. 

The term guide and course catalog will both show courses offered by the college. However, there is a significant difference: the term guide shows term-specific courses while the course catalog shows all courses SUNY Empire has previously offered. This means the course catalog will show courses that may or may not be scheduled for your selected term.  

You should use the term guide if you are registering for the upcoming term and want to see only scheduled courses. Selecting Browse Term Guide will allow you to search using term-specific criteria in addition to the standard course subject and number. These additional criteria include session, location, mode of study, instructor, and campus. These search criteria are helpful when looking for courses in a specific session like our Express Term One or Express Term Two. 

If you are curious about what courses SUNY Empire has offered previously, you’ll want to look at the course catalog. By selecting Browse Course Catalog, you can search for a specific subject area and see all the courses we offer. This type of search is helpful for building your degree plan. If you want to see if the course you are viewing is offered in the upcoming term, you can check by selecting View Sections. If the course is scheduled, you’ll see the information from the term guide: Course Registration Number (CRN), instructor, meeting times, and availability status. If the course is not scheduled, you’ll receive a message to “please search again.” Even if the course is not offered in the upcoming term, all is not lost. You can talk to your mentor about possibly taking the course as a Just In Time Study (JITS). A JITS is a section of a course that your mentor can create to meet your individual needs as a student. 

The term guide and the course catalog will show you the courses SUNY Empire offers but selecting which one to use depends on what you want to do. If you have questions about the term guide or course catalog, contact us at RegistrarsOffice@esc.edu.