Tuesday was my first day off from work in almost two weeks. Instead of sleeping in or lounging around in my pajamas, or even doing laundry, I had the daunting task of registering for classes – semester style.
Regardless of the fact that I have not had a decent night’s sleep in the same span of time, meaning that as soon as I get home from work at 1 a.m. I go to bed, and as soon as my alarm goes off every morning, I jump into the shower and then head either to a meeting, The News or back to work. I also had to register for classes today.
Maybe this sounds repetitive to those who don’t know me, but for anyone who had the pleasure [sarcasm] of speaking to me Tuesday, the underlying theme of Tuesday was; a) Heather was overtired and b) Heather was not pleasant.
Having gotten that out of the way, things did not get off to a smooth start. Getting out of bed Tuesday was an incredibly arduous task. Once I woke up and remembered that I had to register, I also realized I needed my “four-digit pin number.”
Hmmm.
I realized at this moment that things could get difficult, and fast. Being the semester conversion guru that I am, I lucked out and my first meeting of the morning just happened to be with an administrator that has access to student files, aka, my four-digit pin number.
Things were looking up.
Noon rolled around and according to one of the back pages in my spring course offering booklet, my time was noon. I synchronized my watch, cell phone and the clock on my computer and began waiting anxiously.
I was on campus, so I dialed the four magic digits; 8-0-0-0, and waited.
Busy!
I dialed again.
Busy!
While slamming the phone back into the cradle I swore under my breath (I’m sorry to disappoint, but when I’m overtired I tend to lack ladylike qualities).
Through my journey of semester conversion I realized that this would be the first time students could register for classes online.
So I tried.
And failed.
And failed.
And failed.
And failed.
For some reason, the password that I remembered was not the one that the myNEU site remembered. I would like to also point out that I had written the password down, so I would argue that I was right and the damn computer system was wrong, but I’ll stay objective for the sake of journalism.
Giving up on the World Wide Web and the information superhighway, which I believe saw a number of traffic jams and delays on Tuesday, I resorted to the telephone once again.
And again and – BINGO!
I made it, sort of.
I registered for Law of the Press and Ballet, yes I’m taking ballet, and then I tried to register for intermediate Spanish.
The delightful automated voice on the other end said that I (of all people) had made an unauthorized action and should speak to the dean. At that point, your guess was as good as mine. But, I remained calm and continued to register for the spring semester as well.
I hung up and made some calls.
Recounting the events of the day has gotten me flustered, so let me share something with you, although this may sound like a script written for a Lifetime movie. I blamed myself. I thought that after the past two quarters of covering semester conversion I had missed something, that because of my faults I was unable to register for Spanish.
I’m really serious.
Finally I got a call back, or I called someone, honestly it’s all a blur. I can’t remember anything at this point.
Turns out the modern languages department misnamed the course. The voice on the other phone told me this with a chuckle, as if it were funny.
NEWSFLASH – It isn’t buddy, not at all.
Spanish not only is my weakest subject, I have not taken it in three years. Three years!
Why?
Because the course was never offered when I was on campus, or there was a conflict with another requirement I had to take.
But three years? Come on.
Thankfully, I registered successfully and just think, it only took three years, four phone attempts, four on-line attempts and a countless number of unprintable phrases.
As the afternoon wore on, I received another phone call, this call in particular erased the Lifetime movie-eqsue feelings from my mind. I no longer blamed myself for what turned out to be a university foul-up.
Imagine that.
Jackie Emmart, a middler ASL major, was scheduled to meet with her advisor at 6:30 a.m.. When I heard that, I determined immediately that she was my hero. But anyway, things with that appointment fell through and she realized she had to schedule her classes the old fashioned way.
And failed.
Over and over again, in the same manner that I had failed.
So Emmart did what any student battling with semester conversion would do, she called me. Although, I must say, she was very calm.
“If I’m supposed to start registering at a certain time, then it should start,” she said. “I’m a busy girl, I don’t have time for this.”
The words were music to my ears. Someone else finally understood.
We shared our tales, of sorrow, and Emmart wrestled enough strength to get back in the game again. She got back on the phone to register – and made it.
Apparently, the fourth time is a charm at NU.
Now don’t get me wrong, technological advances are great, but if you can’t master the 1980s way of doing things, don’t bother trying to be innovative. And I’m not basing this entire column on two student accounts. Believe me, there were plenty of other people in and out of the Curry Student Center who were swearing under and over their breath today, cursing myNEU and the touch tone services.
Maybe students were on the ball and everyone made a point to register online, but if this is so, shouldn’t the university be prepared? Shouldn’t the systems be able to accommodate all of the students? Especially if the classes are broken down into separate time periods for calling shouldn’t the flow be even smaller then?
There are a lot of unanswered questions. But, one thing I do know is that Northeastern University picked the wrong class to “mislabel.”
Bottom line, I’m angry. But, more importantly, I’m disappointed and I don’t think I will be willing to go back on that – my patience has been worn thin and I’m fed up, times four.