I love Northeastern. I brag to all my friends back home about how legitimate the co-op program is, how challenging the classes are and how easily the campus integrates with the city of Boston. Sure there are a few snags, like the bureaucratic red tape known as the ‘NU Shuffle,’ but nothing is perfect right?
Enter University Health and Counseling Services (UHCS).
One would hope that with as great an institution as ours, a similar program would be in place to ensure the continued health and mental stability of its students. Regrettably this is far from true. I have only been to UHCS twice in nearly three years, and the second time was definitely my last.
It is disgusting that a program put in place to help console and remedy students can have the opposite effect. On both of my visits there, I had to wait for the employees at the desk to finish their personal, clearly not-work-related conversations among themselves.
My first visit, which was last fall, involved helping my roommate limp to the office. After waiting for the receptionists to end their chat, I explained that he was in extreme pain and we needed a wheelchair so we could get him to a doctor.
They laughed at me. No joke. They told me, in a condescending tone, that they never give out wheelchairs, and to ask for once was preposterous. The rest of the visit carried a similar tone and we both left with an odd feeling – being talked to like you are 5 years old when you are 20 years old will do that, I guess.
My second visit on July 23, which incidentally led to the writing of this letter, began practically the same way. Once the receptionists finally finished their obviously more important conversation, and I was able to speak with them, my problems seemed stupid and laughable to them.
I would hope that asking for a recommendation for a chiropractor would not seem humorous to a university that eagerly accepts a hefty check every semester from my bank loans.
The receptionist I spoke to seemed baffled by the idea that there were actually chiropractors in Boston, and began to suggest physical therapy centers instead. In that encounter I left feeling downtrodden and angry, not exactly what one would hope to feel leaving an office called the ‘University Health and Counseling Services.’
Upon asking some of my friends about this, it seemed this was the generally accepted persona carried by this service department. It is ridiculous. The health and mental stability of the university’s students should be a top priority, and while I would hate to assume it isn’t, it is hard not to when treated like ignorant children who don’t know their left from their right.
I would hope Northeastern is more apt to hire capable, friendly and helpful employees throughout campus, not to mention at such a sensitive and serious service like UHCS.
I guess these are my question to the student body: Is this true for all of you as well? Or did I catch a few people on their bad days and judge too harshly? If it is true, then Why hasn’t anyone done anything, why has this unacceptable tolerance for such lacking and pathetic customer care been allowed to continue?
– Jason Morris is a middler marketing and entrepreneurship major.
