Victoria Ronan
Equinox Staff
The housing selection process has come and gone for many Keene State College students, but not for all.
It’s now time to take a glance back at the changes that were made and how KSC students felt about them.
As the campus continues to progress into the modern world of technology, so does the housing selection process.
However, many students believe KSC made the jump too soon.
Some unforeseen issues met the students when they went to secure their room locations online.
The option to choose random roommates has been taken away by the online version.
A student can no longer stand in a crowded room looking for someone to fill a spot to complete a suite.
Mandy Martin, assistant director for Housing Operations, said that the most frequent question she received from students was about how to go through the selection process without roommates.
KSC junior Shammara Al-Darraji had some great difficulties with this particular issue with the new housing selection process.
Al-Darraji said she did not realize she had to put down mutual friends she wanted to live with if she didn’t want to live in a single or be placed on the waiting list.
“I thought I could wait to see my number,” she said.
According to Al-Darraji, it never stated online that a student had to choose mutual friends.
“It should have been in bold, you need to pick mutual friends, not you should.” Al-Darraji said she enjoys living with people she does not know yet.
“I like to make new friends by living with random people. With this system you can’t do that.”
She said she wouldn’t mind having the system be online if Residential Life explained it better online and didn’t take away the random roommate option.
“I think it’s easier for them but not for students.”
Residential Life did have meetings about the new online process to inform the student body of what to do and what not to do.
However, Al-Darraji said she was always busy during the informational meeting times.
“I thought going online would tell me everything I needed to know.”
She said she wasn’t worried until she actually had a problem.
According to Martin, not all students had issues with the housing selection process.
Martin said Residential Life heard feedback from upperclassmen who had to choose housing in the student center in prior years, and they liked having it online better.
“We have heard from students who successfully completed the process that it was faster and easier than they anticipated.”
However, she said Residential Life does plan on making changes for future years.
“We also want to develop a way for students who do not have any preferred roommates to choose a space that is not a single room.”
According to Martin, this is not the only problem Residential Life plans on addressing though.
“Next year we hope to be able to offer a preview so that students can log in prior to their selection time to see what spaces are available.”
Martin said Residential Life prefers the new online version.
“The online process is more streamlined for us on the administrative side and did not require as many staff resources on the selection days.”
She said having it online means the data is more accurate and there are fewer chances for manual data errors.
Martin said Residential Life had a technical problem getting the website online the first day but they resolved the issue within the first half hour.
Martin said the new housing process will continue to change and evolve as Residential Life gets more student feedback and learns more about the software.
“Now that we’ve gone through a selection process with the software we will be able to expand information sessions and better prepare students ahead of time to use the website.”
Victoria Ronan can be contacted at vronan@keene-equinox.com