Letter to the Editor: Internet Woes

Dear Editor:

It should have been a typical Sunday night for me, spent working on Economics homework while actually surfing Facebook and chatting with my friends on AIM.
I say it should have been because that wasn’t what I was doing.  What I was doing, instead of procrastinating on my work, was writing this letter.
You see, I wasn’t able to surf Facebook – or access any website besides the University’s, apparently – because the internet wasn’t working.
Now if this had been the first time perhaps I would have simply sighed in frustration and texted someone to bitch about it.
However, this wasn’t the first time myself and the 4,000 some other undergraduate students who live on the UMW Fredericksburg campus had experienced this problem.
It was about the sixth or seventh time that I had been totally unable to use my computer for anything related to the internet from my room.
So far as I can tell, based on what I’ve been told by various members of the administration, this happens because the University does not have enough bandwidth to support the student body’s needs.
This begs the question: why not?
The University selects how many students it desires to have each year when a new class enters into our school, and should be well aware of the growing reliance on the internet that every student has.
It is not just a tool for getting required readings off of Blackboard, it is also the method that many students prefer for staying in touch with friends on campus and back home, through Facebook, AIM, or any other countless means.
If the University is going to make me pay tuition, and Residence Life is going to make me pay room and board, then I cannot help but expect certain things in return for my many dollars.
One of these things is the ability to put off my Econ. work for Facebook – and when I cannot do so, I have to spend my time doing other things… like writing letters.

Paul Tindall is a freshman and would like to make it clear that he does not speak for the Office of Residence Life.