Swapping a course

Important information about swapping a course

Before the add/drop deadline, you may add, drop, or change your courses without having it appear on your official academic record.

In Workday, you can “swap” a course, which means you can switch the course you’re already signed up for with a different one. You will not lose your spot in your current course until your seat in the new course or section is confirmed.

Use this process to switch courses or sections instead of dropping a course. If you drop a course, your seat will immediately become available to other students. You may not be able to add it again if you’re unable to register in the new course or section.

You cannot swap courses after the add/drop deadline, but you may be able to withdraw from a course. Connect with an advisor to learn about possible impacts of withdrawing from a course.

How to swap a course

First, go to your Academics app

  1. Log into your Workday account at myworkday.ubc.ca.
  2. Click the “Academics” tab in the “Your Top Apps” menu on the right side of the page.

Next, view your registered courses

  1. Click the “Registration & Courses” tab in the top menu.
  2. On the right of the page, click the “View my Courses” link in the “Registration” menu.

Swap the course

  1. You’ll be brought to a new page with the heading, “View my Courses”. Here, go to the “My Enrolled Courses” table. You will see a summary table of the courses you are registered in.
  2. Find the course you want to swap out of and use the horizontal scrollbar at the bottom of the table to move to the right.
  3. Click the white “Swap” button in the last column.
  4. On the next page, you will have the option to select “New Course” or “New Section”. This will allow you to swap to this course if there are seats available. If the course is full, you will remain in your previous course until you find an available course or cancel the process.

If you select New Course

  1. In the “Course to Add” field, select a course by typing the course name (e.g., “Economics”) or course code (e.g., “ECON 102”). Press the Enter key on your keyboard to search.
  2. Select the course you want to swap to.
  3. Click the orange “OK” button to move to the next page.
  4. On the next page, check the box in the “Select” column on the left side of the table to add sections and/or activities for the new course.
  5. Review the “Course to Drop Confirmation” table at the bottom and make sure you are swapping out of the correct course. If the new course or section is available, once you swap out of your current course, your seat there will be open to other students.
  6. Check the “Confirm Swap” box if you are sure you want to complete the swap.
  7. Click the orange “OK” button at the bottom of the page to finalize the swap.
    • If you have not checked the “Confirm Swap” box, you will receive an error and your changes will not be saved.
    • If there are no seats available in the course or section you want to swap to, you will receive an error and not be able to continue.
  8. If your course swap was successful, the next page will show “Successful Registrations” and a table of the course(s) you have switched to.

If you select New Section

  1. On the page titled “Swap Student Course Registration”, review the “Course Section for Swap” field to make sure the section you want to swap is correct.
  2. Click the orange “OK” button to move on to the next page.
  3. On the next page, check the box in the “Select” column on the left side of the table to choose your new section.
  4. Click the orange “OK” button at the bottom left of the page to finalize the swap. If there are no seats available in the course or section you want to change into, you will receive an error and not be able to swap.
  5. If your section swap was successful, the next page will show a “Successfully Registered Sections” table with the course section(s) you have switched to.
  6. Click the orange “Done” button to return to your Workday homepage.

Commonly encountered problems

“Confirm” field error

If you do not check the “Confirm Swap” box, you will receive an error stating the “field Confirm is required and must have a value”. Your changes will also not be saved. Make sure you have checked the “Confirm Swap” box.

No seats available

If there are no seats available in the course or section you want to swap into, you will receive an error and not be able to continue.

Additional resources