As an undergraduate student living with an unpredictable medical condition, I often relied on college scheduling hacks for students with chronic illness to put together a hybrid schedule each semester that would provide options for flexible attendance and easy access to course materials online. This included things like having a day off each week where I didn’t have classes and using assistive technology in the classroom, as well as discovering other strategies that can help schedule college classes for students with disabilities like me. Here are my favorite college scheduling hacks for students with chronic illnesses, and tips for scheduling college classes while managing a chronic illness. Many of these tips can also be used while scheduling college classes with an undiagnosed chronic illness.
Pay attention to priority registration dates and times
Students who are registered with Disability Services often receive priority registration benefits, which provide the option to register for classes before other students regardless of credits earned. Priority registration benefits are designed so that students can register for classes at their preferred times, preferred locations, or with specific professors so that they don’t have to compete with other students or risk getting on a wait list. This can be especially helpful for students who use the following accommodations:
- Disability transportation services or paratransit, which is only offered at specific times of the day (and may not be available for late night classes or early morning classes)
- Students who structure their days around consistent rest breaks or other standing appointments
- Students who want to enroll in a specific class section either to be with friends or a specific professor
For best results, I recommend researching the course catalog as soon as courses are listed for the next semester so that appropriate planning can be made for choosing professors/class sessions.
Related links
- How To Create A Disability Services File
- Why You Should Get A Disability Services File
- How To Schedule College Classes
- Using Disability Transportation Services In College
Use an app like Coursicle for late registration
I changed my major shortly before the beginning of the semester, and many of the courses in my new major were showing up as full when I started looking into classes. I wasn’t the only student who was rearranging their schedule though, so I signed up for open seat alerts with the Coursicle application, which would send a notification to my phone when a seat opened up in a class I was tracking- no need to keep refreshing the course catalog. Coursicle does not register students for courses automatically, but it does provide the course registration number (CRN), which students can type when registering for classes on their college’s website.
Related links
- How I Use The Coursicle Class Scheduling App
- What If I Get Dropped From All My College Classes?
- Ten Questions To Ask When Changing Your Major
- How To Request a Course Substitution or Course Waiver In College
Sign up for professors that teach multiple sections
One of my favorite college scheduling hacks for chronic illness during undergrad was to sign up for professors that teach multiple sections of the same course. That way, if I couldn’t attend class on the original day/time I had planned, I could send them an email and ask if I could attend a different session instead during that same week. This was especially useful when I couldn’t attend one of my classes as planned due to an urgent care visit, and my professors were generally accommodating since I was making the effort to attend class instead of trying to figure out what I missed later on.
Related links
- Ten Templates For Emailing Professors
- How To Explain Disability Accommodations To Professors
- How I Talk To Professors About Photosensitivity
Consider a hybrid schedule
Even though I lived on-campus for four years, I always took at least 50% of my classes each semester as either online asynchronous or hybrid virtual classes because I found it easier and less stressful to complete assignments from my personal desktop computer, and also because many of my class materials were posted in digital formats for all students. I had to miss a lot of classes during my first year of college due to health issues, and taking virtual classes made it possible for me to stay on track and complete assignments while sitting in a comfortable place and focusing on recovery. I also find that my test and quiz scores are often higher in hybrid/virtual classes because I have more control over the lighting in my space, the time of day when I work on assignments, and other sensory characteristics of my surroundings.
Related links
- Tips For Taking Online Classes As An On-Campus Student
- Remote Testing Accommodations For Low Vision
- Questions To Ask When Choosing A Desktop Computer For College
Choose courses that offer digital textbooks
I have low vision and can’t read standard print, so I exclusively read eBooks and digital textbooks to accommodate large font sizes. Beyond adjustable font sizes, digital textbooks offer many other benefits for students with disabilities and chronic illness, which can include:
- Option to store multiple textbooks on one lightweight device, instead of carrying multiple books to class
- Ability to highlight, add notes, and copy/paste text
- Listen to books read out loud with text-to-speech or virtual assistants
- Increase font size, font style, spacing, and other text display settings
- Change the color of the page to avoid sharp white or bright colors
- Display text in a single-column layout
Personally, I prefer to read textbooks in responsive file formats like EPUB and HTML, which provide more options for enlarging text compared to a PDF or scanned image, which may appear more pixelated when magnified.
Related links
- How To Request Accessible Textbooks In College
- Reading Chegg eTextbooks With Low Vision
- A to Z of Assistive Technology for Reading Digital Text
- Amazon Kindle App and Low Vision Accessibility
Schedule time between classes for eating and travel
When I was first getting the hang of scheduling college classes with chronic illness, I tried a few approaches including scheduling multiple classes in a row. The first two times I tried this strategy, it backfired in two different ways:
- When I had registered for classes, I thought the building codes for my two classes were for two buildings right next door to each other. I then found out the two buildings were actually several minutes apart, which didn’t give me much time to get from one side of campus to the other in peak traffic.
- After learning to check building codes on the university facilities office, I scheduled two classes in neighboring buildings back to back. This arrangement meant that I would eat a late lunch, and led to my stomach growling or feeling lightheaded/distracted during class as I would find it more challenging to focus my eyes. Eating or drinking in class was not an option since it was in a computer lab.
When I would schedule back-to-back classes in future semesters, I would make sure to leave enough time to travel between buildings or grab food/something to drink if needed before the next class started. This could mean scheduling my second class near the dining hall, or scheduling classes that are held in the same classroom/building or adjacent locations to cut down on walking.
Related links
- What’s In My Backpack: Commuting To Satellite Campus
- Activity Ideas For Vision Breaks
- Disability Accommodations For Fluctuating Eyesight
Make a list of favorite buildings and classrooms
After I realized that I didn’t know building codes as well as I thought, I made a list of classroom buildings located near my dorm and classrooms that I had a particularly positive experience with. Some characteristics of these favorite buildings/classrooms would include:
- Step-free entrance and desk areas
- Comfortable lighting and limited glare
- Larger desks that can accommodate a computer or larger monitor
- Convenient access to outlets
- Ability to access information presented on the board
- Comfortable chairs
- Otherwise quiet space with no distracting fans, lots of hallway noise, or other constant sounds that can be distracting
- No flickering or flashing overhead lights
While I still would check who was teaching each class before signing up, I would often look for classes in buildings or classrooms that had worked well for me in the past so I would know what to expect. This became easier as I got into upper-level courses for my major, as many courses were offered in the same classrooms.
In some cases, students may be able to request that a class location be moved, though this can be a bit difficult to pull off. I successfully requested this a couple of times for the following reasons:
- One of my classes was moved to the classroom directly next door to accommodate additional students and larger desk sizes
- Another class was moved within the same building after a persistent issue with a malfunctioning projector that would create a flickering effect, which could trigger vertigo for some students
- While I wasn’t the one to make the request, I helped a friend advocate to have a class relocated to a different building, as the accessible entrance was blocked due to construction
Related links
- Preferential Seating and Low Vision
- How To Make Things On The Board Easier To See
- Five Common Technology Behaviors That Hurt My Brain
- Navigating Campus Construction: College O&M
Ask around for professor recommendations
Unlike high school, college students generally have more control over which professor they get for a class, though it can be challenging to figure out which professors know how to handle disability accommodations. Some great resources to get recommendations for professors that know how to handle disability or chronic illness accommodations include:
- Department advisors
- Staff members at the writing center/math center
- Disability Services case managers/advisors
- Assistive technology specialists
- Student organizations specific to disability or chronic illness
- Upperclassmen or friends
- Department managers
By talking to people in these roles, I was able to get connected with professors who would follow my lead when it came to having disability accommodations followed, and that were receptive to my proactive approach to handling accessibility challenges. I prefer this over professors who expect me to entirely self-accommodate (which is difficult with visual impairment) or that take a reactive approach and don’t engage with students until they are failing the course.
Related links
- Ten More Questions to Ask When Choosing A College
- Ten Questions To Ask When Choosing A Virtual Class
- How To Choose General Education Courses In College
- Eight Things You Need To Know About Your Disability Accommodations
Talk to assistive technology specialists about class choices
At my university, the assistive technology specialists and accessible media coordinators are more knowledgeable about the materials, textbooks, and general accessibility of courses than the Disability Services case managers, because the assistive technology staff have ongoing conversations with professors for making their content accessible. By talking with the assistive technology specialists, I learned which professors offered accessible digital materials in their classes that were ready to use, as well as which ones were great about sending required information so that students could get access to classroom materials.
Related links
Have a plan for attending class remotely
While I didn’t plan to get sick six weeks into the semester, I was glad to have already figured out options for attending class remotely when I had to leave campus and finished the semester at home. All of my professors were fine with this but required me to be proactive about what I would need from them, as well as share what solutions would work best for me; they weren’t going to be the ones making a list of options for me to participate in class, rather they would be choosing options from a list that I gave them. I have an entire post linked below about tips for attending classes remotely with chronic illness.
Related links
- Options For Attending College Classes Remotely
- What If I Miss Assignments Or Classes In College?
- The Best Study Tips For Visually Impaired Students
- The Best Study Tips For Auditory Learners
More college scheduling hacks for students with chronic illness
- Looking for ideas for what types of disability accommodations to request? I share a few ideas in Disability and Classroom Accommodations For Chiari Malformation and Disability and Classroom Accommodations For POTS
- Searching for more college scheduling hacks? I share a few more in How To Schedule College Classes
- Wondering how managing a chronic illness fits in with being social on campus? I talk about my own experience in Managing Chronic Migraines in College
Published September 12, 2019. Updated November 2024