...for ME! I'm going to be taking a course at university for the fall semester and boy, I had forgotten how much I detested signing up for things until I spent about 6 hours trying to finish my enrollment. Six. Hours. And I am applying as a citizen, in a language I know, for a course I can complete with confidence, AND I have applied for higher education before. Imagine, I told my sister today, if I was a new Canadian? Or this was my very first time attending university, in my late 30s? Imagine if I couldn't speak English very well or navigate the websites? What a crippling system it is for the disadvantaged.
First, the student number. Then registration for a student account. Then registration for another section of the student account that lets me add courses. Then downloading an app and installing it and then activating it (which required TWO devices, btw, in case you don't have two devices or are trying to do this in, say, a library or a friend's house), and then registering for the program itself. Then finding a phone number and calling it (long distance, in case you are doing this on a public phone) and after waiting on hold for 53 minutes (in case you are trying to do this on your lunch break at the burger place) getting hung up on, calling back and waiting for 38 minutes until someone answers. Articulating yourself clearly (in case you struggle with that. Oh, and there was no visible TTY option, so I guess if you are deaf you're out of luck) Then printing off a form (in case you don't have a printer), understanding what the form says, or what any of this stuff says (in case English isn't your first language), scanning it (in case you don't have a scanner) and on and on. This is without even discussing the financial aspect of higher education, or the discernment necessary to choose a program, or the self-confidence, the home life, the suppot network and so forth.
Bootstraps, y'all.
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