Most UMD students approach registration the same way: open Testudo, search for a course, write down a CRN, and then manually check whether it overlaps with everything else they want. Repeat for every section. Do it over again when a section fills, then again when a professor turns out to have a 2.7 on PlanetTerp. It burns two to three hours and still leaves you with a schedule built by trial-and-error rather than design. There is a faster way. Orbit’s auto-generate feature builds every possible conflict-free combination from the courses you want, ranks them by your time preferences, and lets you compare them visually so you can pick the best schedule, not just the first one that technically works. The whole process takes about 20 minutes. Here is exactly how to do it.
Step 1: Add your courses (5 minutes)
Start by deciding which courses you need or want to take next semester. For each one, add all the sections you’d be willing to sit in, not just the one you want most. The more section options you give the auto-generator, the more valid combinations it can find. If you have backup courses in case a first-choice fills (say, BMGT 340 instead of a full PSYC elective), add those too. At this stage, resist the urge to pre-filter by professor. Let the algorithm surface all conflict-free options first; you can sort by rating afterward.
- Go to the UMD scheduler in Orbit and search for each course you are considering
- Add all the sections you are willing to take for each course. More options means more valid combinations
- Do not filter by professor yet; let the auto-generator handle section selection first
- Include backup courses in case one does not have an open section
Step 2: Set your preferences (2 minutes)
Before Orbit generates combinations, tell it your constraints. If you work Tuesday and Thursday mornings, block those times. If you have a standing commitment on Friday afternoons, mark it unavailable. You can also express softer preferences: no 8 a.m. classes, no back-to-back four-hour gaps, or a desire to cluster your classes into two or three focused days rather than spreading thin across five. Orbit uses these inputs to filter and rank the generated schedules so the ones that bubble to the top are genuinely usable, not just technically conflict-free.
- Block out times you are unavailable: work, standing commitments, sleep schedule
- Set preferences for days off. Many students prefer a no-Friday or no-Monday schedule
- Choose whether you want classes clustered or spread across the day
- Orbit generates every conflict-free combination that fits your constraints
Step 3: Review and pick your top 3 (10 minutes)
Once the generator runs, you’ll see a ranked list of valid schedules displayed as weekly grids. Scan through them visually. The difference between a great schedule and a mediocre one often comes down to whether you have an hour of dead time between classes or a clean block of afternoon hours for studying. Save your top three combinations as Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C. Then copy the CRN for every section in each plan. You will need those CRNs the moment your registration window opens in Testudo. Pasting them in directly is far faster than searching for each course under time pressure.
- Scroll through the ranked list of valid schedules and compare layouts visually.
- Save your top 3 combinations as Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C.
- Copy the CRNs from each plan. You will need them on registration day.
- Check PlanetTerp ratings for professors in your top schedule before committing.
Step 4: Verify against your degree progress
A conflict-free schedule that does not move your degree forward is just busywork. Before you lock in your choices, open Orbit’s degree audit panel alongside the schedule view. You want to confirm that the courses you’re planning actually satisfy requirements you still need, and that nothing on your list is blocked by an incomplete prerequisite chain. For example, if you are planning to take CMSC 330 (Programming Languages) next semester, you need to verify CMSC 250 (Discrete Math) is either completed or on the current plan. If you are in the Smith School, confirm BMGT 210 (Accounting Principles) is done before you slot in any upper-division BMGT finance courses. Gen Ed tracking matters here too: sometimes the course you need for FSSS (Social/Behavioral Science) is already in your plan and not yet marked as satisfied because it is in a future term. Orbit’s live audit shows that in real time.
- Orbit shows how this semester’s courses fill your degree requirements in real time
- Confirm you are not missing a required course needed before a prerequisite-gated class next semester
- If you are planning a minor or second major, check that overlap is maximized
- Review your Orbit degree audit one more time, then register in Testudo with confidence
Why this beats the manual approach
Manually checking combinations does not scale. If you have five courses with three sections each, that is 243 possible combinations to evaluate, and that is before accounting for your time constraints. Auto-generation evaluates all of them in seconds and surfaces only the ones that actually work. You spend your 20 minutes on judgment calls (which professor, which days off, which backup plan), not on spreadsheets. On registration day, you are pasting CRNs, not searching. That difference of three minutes can mean the gap between an open seat and a waitlist.