High school seniors looking at Northeastern as an option for their future college have no doubt stumbled across the words “NU Shuffle” while doing their research on the school. It’s possible you remember seeing the words yourself when you were going through your own college search however many years ago.

The “NU Shuffle” refers to the experience students go through when they go to one advisor or department for help with a problem and are referred to another office that will often give another referral and another after that until the situation is resolved. The multistep process can be time consuming and often ends in students feeling more upset than they did when the problem initially arose.  

The phrase is littered around several college life websites including College Confidential, Fresh U and Alive Campus. It’s also the subject of multiple threads on Reddit pages related to the university. Incoming freshman express concern ask for information on just how bad it is and current students describe it as frustrating experience every student goes through at least once during their time here.

The Huntington News previously reported on one student’s attempt to alleviate the stress of the “NU Shuffle” with a website meant to be a forum for sharing their experiences with administrative offices and tips on how to avoid a lengthy referral period. The website no longer appears to be running, but the problem it sought to help fix still exists. A member of the editorial board here at the News has experienced the shuffle this semester and many other students have as well.

University administrative offices need to do a better job at communicating with students. There appears to be a disconnect between staff members and students in terms of which departments can help with what information and that disconnect is sending students on wild goose chases across the campus.

It should be obvious what each office does, but a question for one department will involve another. A question about co-op work studies can easily involve two or more departments but staff members do not seem to anticipate the cooperation between offices answering questions like that would require. Departments should be in communication with one another to ensure that the administrative offices are working as efficiently as they can.  

Interdepartmental communication would also ensure that students aren’t being sent to other offices based on hunches and assumptions alone. If a student is being referred to one department, the staff member directing them should have a degree of confidence that they’ll be able to find better answers. Otherwise, student time is wasted and it’s likely that that student will be back in their inbox or office chair by the end of the week.

One way that administrative offices can limit the amount of students that are bounced from office to office is by consistently working on improving their websites to be as user friendly as possible and provide students with the information they need to avoid having to go into an office to begin with. Many of the big departments on campus like Student Financial Services and the  Office of the University Registrar are very extensive and provide students with a lot of the information they need. Others like the website for Cooperative Education and Career Development gives students very little information.

These are offices that get a lot of traffic from students with questions, problems and concerns. Each of their websites could benefit from easily accessible pages that go over the most frequently asked questions and provides the contact information for the people who can answer any follow up questions.

While students have coined the term “NU Shuffle,” the bureaucratic nature of university administration is not a problem unique to our university. Understandably, Northeastern is a large university with a limited number of staff taking on the problems of thousands of students. However, recognizing that this is a problem for many big universities is not an excuse to turn a blind eye to the issue. The administration needs to keep working until every Northeastern student with a problem feels confident that they can get the obstacle resolved as painlessly as possible.