Wireless Access on Campus, or Lack Thereof

Why is it so difficult to connect to the Internet on campus?

I begin my painful journey at the MU; the black hole. In the café, I can probably connect to the internet one third of the time. I’ll buy my tall soy chai, maybe a croissant, struggle to find a vacant seat for two very long minutes and finally get ready to be productive. After 5 minutes of staring at my blank homepage, the realization that I will not be able to get any work done whatsoever slowly dawns on me. I decide not to panic, and figure that I should move to the Griffin Lounge. The Griffin Lounge is a study room- I am immediately confident that I will have a 100% success rate of getting online. I wait 2 minutes, then 5 minutes. Then I restart my computer, and wait 5 minutes again. I turn the wifi icon on and off several times, and even open network diagnostics. The only thing my MacBook Pro can tell me is that I “cannot connect to the Internet.” Thank you, also, I hate you.

The level of difficulty in accessing Moobilenet is beyond unacceptable. If you look at the Wireless Coverage Maps, it is clearly indicated that the MU is included in a very large coverage area. I shouldn’t need a degree in computer stuffs (yes, “stuffs”) to surf the Web. I don’t know what Network Diagnostics are. I’m also very apprehensive of the little red and green lights that alert me to the various things that could be wrong with my computer and/or the network that I am trying to access -in complete vain.

I’m asked about Ethernet and FireWires, and I don’t have Internet access so I cannot Google these words, and I am just hoping the problem is magically fixed. I shut my eyes real hard to escape the traumatic event for a minute. When I open them, the blinking lights persist. But at least I can see them. If I were colorblind, my troubleshooting chances would be that much slimmer (I always try to think positive).

Deeply upset, I take off towards the Silo. I’m still holding on to my soy chai from the MU, it’s getting lukewarm and my well of patience is running dry. There, further attempts at connecting to the Web are met with failure, and my heart fills with rage and despair. I head slowly and heavily towards my classroom in the Chemistry building. Once there, I slump onto the floor and try one last time to connect to the all-elusive campus network. Right away I’m asked for my username and password. I don’t actually care to get any homework done at this point. I am actually not at all happy that I can finally get online. I am literally in the most uncomfortable place to work: the cold dirty floor of a busy hallway. I’m in everyone’s way, irritated, and I’d really like to go home now please.

Though profoundly unpleasant, this was still a great lesson in patience. More importantly I learned not to ever rely entirely on technology –there must always be a backup plan: a paperback issue of the paper you’re supposed to read, or a version saved on a flash drive, or a friend whose computer can for some unknown reason access the internet from anywhere just fine.

The connection problem persists to this day, but by strategically sticking to coverage-guaranteed locations, such as the library, one can actually get some work done on campus.