By Jessie Gambrell

Co-A&E Editor

In an effort to allow every student to register for the appropriate classes and due to an increased demand for enrollment, CSUSM is implementing a new “first pass” unit cap.

With the spring 2013 semester’s priority registration opening Nov. 15 and running through Dec. 7, students will only be able to register for a maximum of 13 units and be waitlisted for no more than 8. Although CSUSM views students taking 6.1 or more units as full time, the 13 unit cap was put in place to allow students to carry at least the 12 required units for financial aid purposes.

“CSUSM is sometimes referred to as a ‘hot campus’ now, so we had to enact a restriction to allow everyone to have an opportunity to sign up for classes. Although we have been seeing that the average of units per student has been 12.3. We are hoping this helps the ‘bottlenecks’ that occur during class registration,” Associate Vice President For Planning and Academic Resources, Dr. Graham Oberem said.

According to a student-wide email from the Office of the Registar, the 13 registered and 8 waitlisted “first pass”unit cap will be lifted on Dec. 17, allowing students to then register for up to 17 units. CSUSM is not the only CSU campus that has made this restriction this semester. CSU Northridge (CSUN) and CSU Long Beach (CSULB) have also enacted this restriction to help curb the overflow of student sign-ups.

Both CSUN and CSULB actually lowered their restrictions to 16 units. In regards to the class limit, not all students are opposed to the new “first pass” process put in place.

“I like it. I think it’s good because then everyone gets their classes,” student Chelsea Power said.

According to Dr. Oberem, the only exceptions that can be made  are for spring 2013 graduating students, veterans and military students who require it.

“I got to petition the unit cap because I am a graduating senior, it didn’t affect my spring schedule after all,” senior Amanda Peace said.