WiFi-xed

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Graham Breitbarth

Skyline’s Wi-Fi issues continue to plague the student body, faculty, and its delivery of a quality community college education.

Skyline College needs to significantly improve its on campus Wi-Fi.

The way schooling is carried out has drastically changed with the rise of technology. Today, nearly all classes rely on some sort of ed-tech (educational-technology) to run efficiently. Most online lessons and assignments cannot be carried out without reliable access to the internet.

Furthermore, you would think that community colleges and schools generally would make the efficiency of its Wi-Fi a top priority.

This is not always the case. And Skyline is not exempt.

Skyline’s Wi-Fi needs to be improved to ensure the success of not just its students and teachers in class, but to effectively demonstrate its commitment to an evolving age of education, with the eventual goal of increasing enrollment.

Professors come into their classes everyday with some sort of a lesson set up through their computer or tablet. However, this lesson cannot serve much of a purpose if the PowerPoint fails to open or a YouTube video won’t load.

This ultimately leads to unfinished lessons, wasted time, or at worst, the whole class being postponed all together.

Mishaps like this not only waste precious time, but can be detrimental to the educational goals set by the professor for their students. Not to mention the career goals of the professors as well.

This fluctuation in internet reliability can lead to confusion during lessons, translating to substandard test scores for students, and finally resulting in poor reviews for professors at the end of the semester for something out of their control.

Skyline has a responsibility to ensure the efficacy and efficiency of the education it administers to all students. And in 2023, regular access to high speed internet is instrumental to delivering on that duty.

Many students do not have the privilege of having their own internet access at home, so they rely on that little “SMCCCD_Public” icon in the corner of their screens.

If the Wi-Fi is not reliable enough for a student to complete their homework, or even worse, their classwork on campus, it can exacerbate existing socioeconomic barriers entrenched in public education.

With poor on campus Wi-Fi, there could be a dichotomy between the success of students with no at-home-internet-access and those who do have that privilege.

Poor reliability of on campus Wi-Fi can not only alter current students’ success, but it may also affect the school’s future. This issue can lead to students wanting to take their education elsewhere, lowering the already declining enrollment. If Skyline wants to maintain and increase its student body, administrators must act fast.

Lowering enrollment may also affect the quality of staff that Skyline may be able to hire. Without proper funds from this enrollment, Skyline could have difficulties paying their hardworking staff properly. This could lead to even further repercussions, ones that Skyline is unable to risk.

Skyline’s on campus Wi-Fi may seem like a minor issue. But what can start small, can snowball into an immense problem. One that can further affect the students and faculty alike to slowly take a toll on Skyline’s future.

Improving our Wi-Fi will lead to more opportunity and student satisfaction for many years to come.