First day of college, got your textbooks, mentally prepared more or less, and finding a parking spot found a new term, “parking rage.”
But your feet have finally touched Pierce College’s pavement and class starts in five minutes. Awesome.
First class: Political Science, EB 1202.
Pause. What the heck does EB stand for and where can I find it?
Because Pierce College strives toward an eco-friendly system by going paperless, it eradicated Pierce’s catalogue which provided quick and convenient access to the campus map. Going paperless is something that colleges are beginning to strive towards in recent years, and with the help of document management software similar to filecenterdms it is slowly becoming a reality.
So, this leaves two options: ask a student or find a directory.
You quickly ask a couple students where EB 1202 is, but most mindlessly swirl their pointer finger in some general far-off direction. You attempt to follow, but golly gosh you got lost.
Hmph. Well then.
Onto option two: find a directory.
There are seven directories that surround the perimeter of the school, found at seven various entrances. Of the eight on campus, only one is found within the grounds in front of the library.
Now hunting down a directory, you’re late by 10 minutes.
Promisingly, you find one along the outskirts of campus. You discover EB stands for Economics Building and is located in the Botanical Gardens.
Victory!
Now running to keep your spot on the roster, what was early by five minutes is now late by 15.
Good luck, chuck.
With only eight physical directories on campus and 20 percent of our school already undergoing construction, would it be possible to build a couple more directories to help prevent confusion to our students and visitors?
Specifically internal areas of our school, such as the Botanical Gardens, don’t have any reliable class locators.
Otherwise it’s about a 400-foot walk to the closest directory from the Botanical Gardens, and that already made the new kid 10 minutes late to class.
Simply adding a “You Are Here” symbol to the directories would really help students that aren’t too familier with the campus yet.
Also adding the corresponding building number to the building’s name on the arrow post directories would promote easy guidance.
The arrow post directories display general titles, such as the Botanical Gardens, but don’t indicate buildings contained within those areas. Economics Building 1200, though not mentioned on the directories, is in the area of Botanical Gardens.
Our schedules say, “EB 1202,” not, “BotGdn 1202.”
At the very, least we should consider changing it to “Botanical Gardens 1100-1700” for reassurance of what classrooms are located in the Botanical Gardens.
If we’re going to be a paperless campus, let’s please help our first-year students, and first-time visitors, find their way around campus as smoothly as possible.
