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Like a portion of college students nowadays, I have a laptop that I use for just about everything. It’s a Dell cookie-cutter computer that I’ve modified to suit my needs, but the main thing I use it for is the internet. Within the scope of my college day, I use my laptop and the internet for a lot of classes. For Psychology, I use the eLearning BlackBoard site to get assignments, I maintain the clarknews.org web site as part of my job at the college newspaper, and I keep in touch with other students in my math class.
One of the boons of having a laptop at Clark College is the wireless internet that’s basically free to all registered students. When I started attending here last year, the only place for anyone to get wireless internet was the upper part of the campus, Gaiser Hall and Cannel Library. But at the start of this academic year, wireless routers were placed around campus, bringing the internet to students who don’t have classes ‘up north’ or simply don’t want to trek up to PUB to check their mail. But this is not all the sunshine and rainbows that it appears to be. When the internet was focused here, in the northern parts of the campus, it was extremely reliably, insofar as it could be. I could always connect and had a fast, responsive connection. When they dispersed the network across campus, that went away.
For the most part, trying to connect to the wireless internet anywhere near the Fireside Lounge, the ASCC, the Independent, or the Upper level is completely impossible. I can connect to the network, but it takes me twenty-three minutes to simply go to the Student Wireless Log-on screen. This is extremely aggravating, as most of my day is spent in this area.
I feel that the college missed the point of larger wireless. The point was to bring a fast connect to a larger area that’s easy for students, and while they have aspects one and two down, they still struggle with three. It doesn’t matter to me at all if they internet is everywhere, if I can’t use it, it doesn’t matter.
