Blog 6=How Will I Know

With massive amounts of snow, comes every student, no matter what the age is, one dream: Snow Day! However, being a commuter student the anticipation of checking the news to see if school is closed or getting a call from the school system is lost. Instead, I had to search in all different areas at 5:45 in the morning to see if school was canceled. The reason for having to do this so early is because I am a commuter to school. I wanted to make sure school wasn’t cancelled before I made the hour long commute downtown.

Early this morning, I saw a major lack of communication for students at DePaul. I had no idea to figure out if school was possibly cancelled. I checked the DePaul homepage, blackboard, campus connect, my e-mail, and even searched through links on those pages. I felt like there were no communication lines available. Then I started thinking about the services that would be open at 5:45 in the morning. I knew there wasn’t much to choose from. All of the buildings tend to open at 8:00 A.M., and by then it would be too late. I was weary, but I decided to call Public Safety. I didn’t want to do this because there was no emergency, but my mom convinced me that it was fine. Public Safety was very helpful, and gave me a quick answer and even gave me alternate ways of finding out this type of information.

I was very upset to see that DePaul had no solution for me. To better the system for cases of this sort on the DePaul homepage there should be a link always there saying that school is in effect or not in effect for that day, and give reasons for school not being in effect. Or the school should have some sort of message sent out, or telephone system to better communicate with students. Today, the commute wasn’t that bad, but it was definitely unsafe conditions on the streets. As I sat on the El I realized, DePaul stresses public transportation there is no way we are going to have a snow day today, and for that matter ever!!!