Selecting housing for the following year should be a fun activity. Coordinating with roommates, getting lottery numbers and browsing the available options all lend themselves to the exciting prospect of a new living situation next year, and hopefully a better one as students rise in class rank at the College.
Unfortunately, this year's housing selection process seems to be just the opposite. A hassle to learn and stressful to use, MyHousing Management is just more trouble than it is worth.
Over the past couple weeks, we have heard numerous accounts of students having issues logging into MyHousing Management, difficulty navigating once in the program or confusion as to how to use it.
Many weren't aware that lottery numbers were even issued and then, when trying to log in to view their time slot, were stuck trying to log in over and over as the program froze.
If the kind of traffic generated by just viewing lottery numbers puts a hitch into the system, how do we know it will be functional when choosing our housing? If this brand new system messes up, a student could easily end up without a place to live next year.
Normally, students are able to view a list of student names and lottery numbers when numbers are issued so they could easily see whether potential roommates received a better number. Now, the list is done by a number system, so it's impossible to tell without coordinating with the person, or by searching for them through MyHousing Management. Again, this is a hassle.
Finally, several students seem to be assigned to the same housing time slot. What happens when more than one student is going for the same housing spot at the same time? The system is reminiscent of the stressful and often frustrating TESS system of picking classes. It often ends with waiting forever for the page to load, only to find out that the class you wanted just closed in the last few seconds, and you're stuck starting from square one.
Sure, it's nice not to have to show up with paper work on selection day. But really, was it that much of an inconvenience? The old system seemed to work fairly smoothly. One shows up, waits a few minutes and when the number is called, is easily able to see what options are left, pick a room and leave.
So why fix what wasn't broken?
