When planning each quarter at UC Santa Barbara, the process of scheduling undergraduate courses begins months in advance. 

Anthony Schmid, the university registrar, said in an email statement to the Nexus that the scheduling process begins with departments providing a proposed list of the courses they intend to teach, along with its desired enrollment capacities and meeting times. For courses that require unique equipment, the department can request special features, such as theater seating or larger rooms.

“Staff in the Office of the Registrar use an application called Astra Schedule to optimize the placement of courses into the available General Assignment spaces. The system will always try to place classes that best match the capacity and feature requirements and will prioritize courses that better fill a space,” Schmid said.

With the help of applications such as Astra Schedule, each class is organized based on special criteria to optimize their location and time. In three months, the proposed schedule of classes is officialized through its release on Gaucho On-Line Data (G.O.L.D.).

The Interactive Learning Pavilion (ILP) is home to 15% of all lectures during the quarter. Consisting of five tiered lecture halls, three active learning classrooms and 20 classrooms, the ILP has the largest capacity on campus, providing 2,030 seats of classroom space. Since its opening in spring 2023, the ILP has increased the University’s classroom capacity by 35%.

Phelps Hall, the Humanities and Social Sciences Building and Girvetz Hall come behind the ILP in holding the most lectures, with maximum capacities of 1362, 1182 and 750 seats, respectively.

Often, a majority of classes are held in buildings named for the department they are offered through. For example, 92% of classes offered by the Department of Education have classes in the Education Building, 92% of classes offered by the Department of Music have classes in the Music Building and 77% of classes offered by the College of Creative Studies (CCS) have classes in the CCS building. 

65% of the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry classes are held in both Physical Sciences Buildings, which have access to laboratory equipment. Similarly, 69% of the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology classes meet at the Biological Sciences Instructional Facility and Life Sciences Building. 

In contrast, none of the psychology classes in Winter Quarter 2026 are held in the Psychology Building. Shannon Rivard, the business officer for the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, explained in an email statement to the Nexus that the classrooms in the Psychology Building are too small for undergraduate courses because it is only one floor.

“The classrooms in our buildings are used for smaller classes, lab meetings, seminars, grad classes etc.,” Rivard said. 

Additionally, enrollment for psychology classes are large and cannot be adequately accommodated at the Psychology Building.

“For undergraduates, the largest functional classroom we control barely holds 30 students. Our classes typically enroll no fewer than 75 students, average closer to 125 students and can be as large as 800,” Christopher McFerron, the students affairs manager for the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, added.

The UCSB Classroom Inventory gives an overview of the available classrooms, as well as the department that has priority over the classroom, when planning courses. When no department has priority over the classroom, it is considered a “general assignment” space. The ILP falls under the “general assignment” title, which allows any department to schedule classes and leads to greater variability among the classes held inside it.

Most classes offered in Winter Quarter 2026 start at 11 a.m on Wednesdays. This period can be explained by the intersection of Monday-Wednesday, Wednesday-Friday and Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes during “prime-time,” which is defined by the UCSB classroom scheduling policy as 10 a.m to 1:50 p.m.

The policy continues that “academic departments are encouraged to limit the number of their undergraduate primary courses offered during prime-time to 60% of the 50, 75, and 110 minute undergraduate primary courses offered by that department.”

In this case, the policy describes primary courses as those that appear separately on a student’s transcript. Secondary courses are labs and discussion sections that are part of each primary course.

Notably, 50% of music performance laboratory classes start after 5 p.m. Olivia Mendoza, the undergraduate advisor for the Department of Music, said in an email to the Nexus that this trend is consistent every quarter, allowing the music performance ensembles to practice effectively.

“Our performance course offerings are scheduled in the evenings because the Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall is unavailable to the Music Department until after 2:00 p.m. each day as it is used as a lecture hall, and the concert hall provides the special equipment needed for our courses,” Mendoza said.

Similarly, 30% of the Department of Art classes are held on Mondays at 1 p.m. Hannah Vainstein, the undergraduate advisor and academic program manager for the Department of Art, explained this in an email.

“Many professors request the 1:00 p.m. time slot and so we always have classes scheduled then. Our faculty meetings usually take place on Tuesdays and so the Monday/Wednesday schedule is probably the busiest,” Vainstein said. “Also, lectures with sections are also scheduled on Mondays so there is as much time as possible to schedule the sections throughout the week.”

Over half of undergraduate classes at UCSB are offered in 75-minute lectures, which have been the standard from as early as 1985. However, there are still substantial amounts of 50-minute lectures, along with 110-minute lectures. Ultimately, it comes down to each department to decide those durations.

“Historically only Tuesday/Thursday courses were offered in the 75 minute lecture blocks and almost all Monday/Wednesday/Friday courses were offered in 50 minute blocks. That has changed over the last 20 years as faculty requested more courses in the 75 minute meeting pattern,” Schmid said.

This change can be highlighted in the Department of Mathematics, where Chris Ograin, the undergraduate vice chair for the department, said in an email statement to the Nexus that they only began switching to different blocks this year.

“It used to be the case that we only offered the 75-75 schedule on [Tuesday-Thursday] or the 50-50-50 schedule on [Monday-Wednesday-Friday].  We switched this year (starting in 2025-26 academic year) to courses offered 75-75 on [Monday-Wednesday] as well since this seemed to be popular with our faculty,” Ograin said.

The shift toward longer, less frequent lectures paves the way for meaningful opportunities to connect with other students. In that sense, classes must also receive adequate resources and time to optimize learning within the classroom.

Every quarter, courses start from a proposed draft to a finalized schedule of classes. Prior to this, dedicated individuals – including the Office of the Registrar, department advisors and professors – work together in order to fit each course into an optimal location, reasonable time and appropriate length.

“Our classes are scheduled taking into consideration both upper-division and lower-division classes trying to accommodate and make sure students will have as much access to these classes as possible,” Vainstein said.

A version of this article appeared on p. 13 of the Feb. 5 print edition of the Daily Nexus.