Noureen Qureshi, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’15, sat at her computer at 6:50 a.m in hopes of registering for the spring 2014 semester, only to see a message appear on her screen that her account “timed-out due to inactivity .”

“I tried to log on at least 15 times but every single time, I was logged out almost immediately,” Qureshi said. So instead, Qureshi had a friend register her for her classes.

For the first time, students at FCLC and Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH) have registered at the same time.

Nine days into registration, students are still having trouble registering, with the cause of the problem still unknown to IT according to Diedre Dillion, director of customer relations and student technology services.

Registration has been a problem for many other students as well, according to Associate Dean at FCLC, Mark Mattson. “We were told that there would be no technical issues with the number of students registering and that wasn’t the case. That would be what ends simultaneous registration. If they can’t handle it, it would be a problem,” Mattson said.

“Students [on the first day of registration] received messages saying that too many users were logged in at the same time. I looked at my homepage last night, and there was a campus announcement that they [IT] were working on it,” Mattson said.

Umma Saima, FCLC ’14, faced a few issues when trying to register for her classes. “Initially, it took almost 20 minutes for me to just log in, and then when I did, I wasn’t able to register for two of my classes because of a ‘College Restriction’, which was something that I wasn’t aware of,” Saima said. “The part that is frustrating is that you wake up thinking you’re good to go since you met with your advisor and paid all of your tuition until you see that these things pop up which you aren’t even aware of. Fortunately, Dean Creamer helped me register for the classes I needed.”

When asked what a “College Restriction” is, Mattson said that this message appears when a student is trying to register for a course that fulfills one of the core requirements at another college other than at their own. “This may also happen if the number of FCLC students in a Professional and Continuing Studies course gets to 10: there are 10 seats available in most evening courses for day students. Beyond 10, students are blocked from registering so as to leave room for PCS students, who often register later in the cycle,” Mattson said.

Natalia Jaminiska, FCLC ’15, was also not able to log in to her account until almost twenty minutes after 7 a.m. “I couldn’t log into banner until 7:24 [a.m.] because it was just stalling and it wouldn’t load anything. My classes weren’t competitive, so it wasn’t really a problem in the long run. There are always problems when one campus registers alone, so it’s ridiculous they thought that having two campuses register at the same time would work,” Jaminiska said.

“It was really difficult [registering for classes] and there was a lot of anxiety, especially since I am a junior and graduation isn’t that far away. And we do have fewer classes than Rose Hill does and a smaller population,” Gina Lam, FCLC ’15, said.

Lorraine de Silva, FCLC ’16, had similar problems to those who had registered in the days before encountered. “I was ready on the my.fordham page five minutes before 7 a.m. I was fine, up until I was automatically signed off. Around 7:35 a.m, I was able to log on. Only a couple of my friends got into the classes they wanted. [Fordham] obviously knows that all of us are going to register at once—they should not have had Rose Hill students register at the same time as us. If this is the third day of registration, [Fordham IT] should have figured out how to register all the students already.

“This was the first time I got kicked out of registering for classes six different times. The servers clearly weren’t working. When my friends and I were on the my.fordham site about to register, we didn’t even see the page we just saw code. There were just so many things wrong with registration,” Ross Lampert, FCLC ’16, said.

Problems arose during freshmen registration as well. Maria Cascione, FCLC ’17, said, “When I got locked out [of my.fordham.edu], some of the classes I needed filled up. I still don’t know what classes I am taking next semester. It’s extremely frustrating how stressful just signing up for classes is.”

Not everyone at FCLC faced problems when registering for classes. When asked how the registration process went for him, Muhammed Ahsan, FCLC ’15, said, “Registration actually fared pretty well for me. I have no complaints.”

According to Mattson, the idea for FCLC students and FCRH to register came about from faculty members who were concerned that students were not given an equal opportunity to register for a course that wasn’t available at both campuses.

Currently, IT is analyzing the issues students encountered during registration to figure out the cause of the problem.