Background
Around 2023/2024, my friends and I began working on an overhaul of the UT Registration Plus extension, which had already been in the university ecosystem for years prior thanks to Sriram Hariharan, and today it has over 60,000 active users on campus!
Check it out here: https://github.com/Longhorn-Developers/UT-Registration-Plus
Course Registration...
A biannual event students know all to well.
At UT each semester you go through a standard registration process: meet with your academic adviser (if required), check the course schedule for each class’s unique number and prereqs, clear any registration holds, then log in at your assigned access time and enter unique numbers one by one to try and secure the classes you want.
It’s a process everyone knows, waking up early to catch your access window, refreshing the page again and again, rushing to copy/paste unique numbers, hoping your gen-ed or major-req courses don’t get snatched by hundreds (or thousands) of other Longhorns before you even blink. Students describe registration as chaotic, time-consuming, and often “a free-for-all” where missing a second can cost you a seat.
Because of that pressure, many of us (myself included) fell back on spreadsheets or Google Docs, pasting dozens of possible classes and backups, juggling unique numbers and alternate schedules, crossing our fingers. But that method was messy, fragile, and not unified; there was no official supported way to manage all that.
What UT Registration Plus does
Jeez this is beginning to sound like an ad
- Build and save multiple schedule options ahead of time so you’re not stuck with just one plan when registration opens.
- Instantly view time conflicts or overlaps, so you don’t end up with back-to-back classes or impossible gaps.
- See class & professor data (grade distributions, syllabi, prerequisites, past course history) no need to flip through a dozen tabs or edit long spreadsheets.
- Easily share your schedules with friends, or import/export them helpful if you’re coordinating group projects, roommate classes, or backup options.
- Color-code and organize your classes visually (not as bland rows of numbers) makes planning way simpler than a messy spreadsheet.
- Minimize stress during registration windows; you go in prepared, know your options, and react fast when courses fill up.
(I'm probably forgetting a ton of additional cool features later devs have added lol)
Shoutout to the team at the time, Dhruv Arora, Derek Chen (me!), Som Gupta, Samuel Gunter, Diego Perez, Isaiah David Rodriguez, Elie Soloveichik, Vinson Zheng.