As if returning to school after winter break wasn’t enough of a nightmare, wisc.edu, including MyUW, experienced some technical difficulties the day before spring semester classes were set to begin.
The schedules that had been put together in the hazy trenches of fall semester and were easily forgotten over the course of winter break were suddenly beyond reach. With the impending semester less than 24 hours away, the main tool for students to access their much-needed class schedules was rendered pretty much useless.
The struggle was real. Where were our classes? What time did they even start? Was this some kind of sick joke or a semi-legitimate reason to extend break just one more day? Being able to use the outage to a collective advantage seemed like a long shot, but it’s not like students were responsible for the problems. Was it so ridiculous to hope, at least for a moment, that Bucky had smiled on us and we could take one more day before plunging back into academia?
Students took their questions and declarations of academic procrastination to social media:
https://twitter.com/alecfischer8/status/557377631457673217
https://twitter.com/wiscosrealkelso/status/557422757223600128
https://twitter.com/rochellegoplen/status/557406088862371841
Even with access restored for “most” before it was too late, students continued to have issues accessing the site until the wee hours of Spring Semester Eve.
Unfortunately, this glitch yielded little more than a massive headache for the DoIT desk as students were still expected to be in class due to the availability of alternative methods of access (aka you can get to your class schedule via WiscMail). With that, pipe dreams of staying in bed and putting off responsibility a little bit longer were dashed.
We all knew classes had to start sometime … but can you blame us?
Madeline Sweitzer ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in political science and history and intending to major in journalism.