Exell Jackson
English 1102
Professor Frank
27 February 2013
Clayton State Wi-Fi Connection
Technology is advancing more and more every day, and a big part of its expansion involves connecting to the Internet. A student at Clayton State may connect to the Internet with a cable from the wall to a desktop PC, or with a mobile data plan or Wi-Fi connection to more commonly used mobile devices such as laptops, cellphones, and tablets. Wi-Fi is very important in today’s technological society because of how much everyone uses the Internet on a daily basis. Wi-Fi is everywhere and most of it is free, but not all Wi-Fi is a good network.
“Wi-Fi, or wireless local area network, is used to certify the interoperability of wireless computer networking devices” (Merriam 1). Wi-Fi is offered to the public in most public places such as McDonalds, Barnes and Noble, Starbucks, and even on airplanes and educational facilities. Most of the time, the Wi-Fi is easy and straightforward to connect to, but sometimes a password or small fee is required. It is common to go to McDonalds, order a McDouble and a frappe, sit down with a laptop or tablet, and browse the Internet, connecting to their Wi-Fi with no problem. The same goes for Barnes and Noble and Starbucks but for Clayton State University, I cannot say the same.
A frequently asked question on the HUB is “Does Clayton State University provide Internet access?”(Hub 1) The answer is yes, but when students sit down in their cold room in Laker Hall, or in the dining area at the University Center, to do an important assignment that is due the next day, they encounter many obstacles and procedural roadblocks while trying to connect to the Internet. Although there are times when the Wi-Fi connection is made right away, more often than not, students are asked to enter too much personal information and there are numerous links to click on before finally being able to connect. After completing all of the information, such as providing their Clayton State email and password, students may think they are finally able to connect and complete their assignment. But, while navigating to the assignment page, they are greeted by a screen with, “When you are ready, click here to connect to the network” (Hub 1). Now they have to wait while their computer is being located on the network, which could take a while.
Once the page finally loads and the student is ready to get started, the links that direct them to the next screen seem to not be responding at the pace that they should. Students find themselves waiting two to three minutes to get to a new page. A common remedy used to avoid the wait is to refresh the current page, but this does not always work. Unless they are use to a slow computer, they should know what it feels like to wait so long for one task.
Any school where computers are a main source of getting work done should have an excellent, fast, and reliable Wi-Fi connection, or at the least a backup connection, but at Clayton State we have neither. It would be in the Clayton State