Organizing course offerings for students by semester

Courses
1

Hey everyone! I’m kinda lost about how to set up course offerings for students in different semesters. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

I have tables for Class, Course, and Semester. The admin picks courses for the Computer Science degree each semester, like Fall 2014. But I’m stuck on how to make sure 4th semester students get different courses than 3rd semester students, and so on.

Here’s a quick look at my tables:

Class
- class_id (int)
- class_year (int)
- class_semester (int) FK
- class_course (int) FK
- class_status (int) FK

Semester
- sem_id (int)
- sem_name (varchar 100)

Course
- course_id (int)
- course_code (varchar 10)
- course_name (varchar 100)
- course_credits (int)

Any ideas on how to split up the courses by semester? I’m totally stumped! Thanks for any help!

2

I’ve encountered a similar challenge in my work. One approach that worked well was introducing a ‘Curriculum’ table to link courses with specific semesters and program years. It might look like this:

Curriculum
- curriculum_id (int)
- program_id (int) FK to Program table
- course_id (int) FK to Course table
- year (int)
- semester (int)

This structure allows you to define which courses are offered in which semester for each year of the program. You can then use this to filter available courses when assigning them to classes. It also provides flexibility for different programs and curriculum changes over time. Just ensure to create appropriate indexes for performance.

3

Hey SurfingWave! Your question’s got me thinking… :thinking:

Have you considered adding a ‘prerequisite’ system? It could help manage which courses students can take based on their progress. Maybe something like:

CoursePrerequisite
- prereq_id (int)
- course_id (int) FK to Course
- required_course_id (int) FK to Course

This way, you can set up chains of courses that need to be completed in order. It’s flexible too - some courses might not have prerequisites, while others could have multiple.

What do you think? Could this work with your current setup? It might solve the issue of making sure students take courses in the right order across semesters.

Oh, and have you thought about how transfer students might fit into this system? They could throw a wrench in things if they come in with different course histories. Just curious how you’re handling that!

4

hey surfingwave, u might wanna add a ‘semester_level’ column to ur Class table. it could be like 1-8 for each semester in a 4-year degree. then u can filter courses based on that level when assigning them. just an idea, hope it helps!