The Current | Vol. 31 Issue 30

April 14, 2021 | nsucurrent.nova.edu 10 I am not a morning person. Getting up before 10 a.m. is starting off the day early for me. So, you can imagine my frustration when I have to get up at 8 a.m. on a Monday to register for classes. Now, anyone that has registered for classes at NSU knows that registering for classes is no walk in a park -- and this time, it just had to get worse. For the first 20 minutes of registration, out of 109 courses in the psychology program, less than 10 of them were open for registration, even if none of the seats were taken. At the start, none of the course registration numbers were working so you could not register using one of the codes. When you tried, it would just say this, with weird punctuation and all: “One of the following is preventing registration: Course registration status rules not defined for this section,; Registration is outside of the specified registration,; Section status prohibits registration for this section,; or Registration status does not permit registration on this day. ” This message was not an isolated incident. This message was copied and shared across multiple student organization group chats over several days of registration. NSU seems to have made a habit of taking a program that seemingly worked and making it much worse. Be it registration, SharkTime or whatever, IT’s determination to improve something just becomes more of a hassle for students. So, next time, listen to students’ complaints and try to fix them instead of making things worse. Water Your Thoughts? Fix it, don’t make it worse Opinions Alexander Martinie Opinions Editor Question: How has BlendFlex changed how you prepare for finals? “BlendFlex provides flexibility in testing locations, saving me gas and time as a commuter student,” said Theolene Johnson, senior criminal justice major. “It hasn’t, but my grades have improved throughout the entire semester,” said Jason Bossert, senior public health major. BlendFlex, you’ve been great Ana Maria Soto Contributing Writer It is official. We have made it through more than a year in the time of COVID-19. For me, nothing much has changed. I have never been a person who spent much time out and about, so the pandemic hasn’t impacted my social life as much as it has my school life. If I am being completely honest, I was glad for quarantine. All I had was more time to read the books I couldn’t read because of school and work. I have not set foot onto campus since the university closed back in March 2020. BlendFlex has ultimately made my life easier and I have been grateful for it. I enjoy being able to study and attend class from the comfort of my own home without having to worry about getting sick then potentially infecting my family members. BlendFlex has not been much different than physically going to class for me. As an introvert, I never talked or made connections with any of my peers in class, so that hasn’t changed for me much either. If anything, I have made more friends through BlendFlex learning given my professors have pushed for breakout rooms and group assignments. Even though BlendFlex, for the most part, has been amazing for me, it has had its low points. Technological setbacks and delays have impacted some of my courses when it comes to class duration. I have a class on Thursdays that is always 10 to 15 minutes behind schedule because of issues logging into Zoom. Sometimes, my professors are unable to put us in breakout rooms like they’d intended, and when it comes to projects, some of us are not as tech-savvy and have difficulty sharing the screen or sound, which also causes delays. There are even times where wifi connectivity has been an issue so some of my peers are not heard when they are speaking. Where finals are concerned, I don’t see myself having any issues. My professors have opted not to use the lockdown browser because of the issues that have arisen for them in the past, so most of my exams will be timed on Canvas. I am glad that I was able to do BlendFlex learning this entire school year and hope to be back on campus starting again in the fall, if all goes well. Shark Speak With permission to print from Unsplash.com