Technology has become the staple of the modern world, and when it works, it makes life easier. However, technology here at Drake has never really worked correctly, but recently it has gotten worse. The laundry website has been down since the year started, classroom technology has been on the fritz and eduroam seems to have roamed right off of campus. Technology is such a crucial part of life nowadays, especially in education, so when it doesn’t work, it can be extremely frustrating.
The laundry system website made doing laundry so much easier, especially when living on a high floor. The old website used to show every laundry machine in your hall, which ones were open, which ones were in use, how much time was left on the machine, and when they were completed. I know that last year I used it every time I did laundry, even though I was only one floor above the laundry room. I would check the website, then go down and put my laundry in. It minimized unnecessary trips up and down the stairs.
The website also featured a function that sent a text or email when the washer or dryer finished. That really helped me out because I am notorious for setting timers and checking them every five seconds, which would mean that instead of studying, like I would set out to do, I would instead be monitoring my phone in case I missed my timer going off. Without the website, doing my laundry takes way longer because I have to take multiple long walks to get to the laundry room, and most of the time, there isn’t a machine available.
There has also been no communication from the University about when, or if, it’ll be back up. The website being down is a huge problem for everyone who lives on campus, so I can’t imagine how difficult it is for those who have a busier schedule than I do. This year, I live on the fourth floor, so I have to go a long way just to turn around, because without the website, I have no idea if there are machines available.
Not only is the laundry website down, but other forms of technology on campus don’t work, like the classroom technology. Most of my professors don’t post notes before or after class, so when the screens in the classrooms don’t work, it makes note-taking 10 times harder. Every time I sit down in a class, something is not going to cooperate, whether it is the screens, the speakers or the HDMI cables.
Just the other day, I had to take notes off of a teacher’s laptop as she held it up because the HDMI connector wouldn’t work. I had such a hard time seeing her screen that I gave up on taking notes completely and just waited for her to post the slides on Blackboard later that day. Everyone was frustrated, including the professor, and none of us knew what to do about it because we all expected it at this point.
The biggest issue I have with technology on campus is one that everyone has to deal with: eduroam. The Wi-Fi on campus is constantly going out, and it makes doing work a lot harder. Wi-Fi is needed for literally everything we do as students, so when it goes out, everyone has to suffer. There have been countless times when the Wi-Fi has gone out right in the middle of an important assignment or essay and I’ve had to scramble.
What makes the scrambling worse is the fact that I can’t email my professor without Wi-Fi. Last semester, I was in the middle of a take-home exam and the Wi-Fi went out. I was freaking out because when the Wi-Fi went down, I got pushed out of the exam and was unable to get back in. I had just started, so naturally, I was panicking. It was about two hours later before the Wi-Fi came back, and luckily, the professor opened the exam again for me, and I was able to complete it. Those two hours were pure torture, though, as I had to try and figure out what getting a zero on an exam would do to my grade.
With technology being such an important part of students’ everyday lives, it is frustrating and disappointing to me that campus technology doesn’t work most of the time. We all need to use the Wi-Fi, but it seems to be out more often than not. We all need to do laundry, but a boring task is becoming a real chore. The classrooms are full of technology, but we can’t always utilize it. If we could just get a statement acknowledging the issues and giving the student body a timeline of when things will be fixed, I would be satisfied. Honestly, getting the laundry website back up and running would be a good first step.
