Online registration for the academic year 2020/2021 began this morning, the 7th of September. Unlike previous years, where students were able to log into their UCD Connect account and receive a registration start time on a first come, first served basis, this year has involved the random allocation of registration start times to all students. Additionally, as previously reported, registration now requires students to fill out a Covid-19 student health declaration.
UCD announced via Twitter on August 27th that registration would take place today, instead of September 1st as was initially planned. There was some dismay from students over this announcement, since it was not communicated to students via email at the time.
As approximately 30,000 students must register their modules between today and tomorrow, there are bound to be discrepancies between the times at which students can do so. Anecdotally, some students have had start times as early as 5.30am today whereas other students – even those in the same class – will not begin registration until as late as 9pm tomorrow. We reached out to Students’ Union President Conor Anderson for his take on this kind of situation, who pointed out the necessity of such large gaps: “The registration website cannot handle all students registering for the same modules at one time. For this reason, people in the same classes get different start times, with up to 24 hours in the difference.”
When asked about the announcement of the delayed start time via Twitter, Anderson agreed that it was an improper way to inform students: “This announcement should have been made in an all student email in the first place and not on social media as many students may have missed the update on Twitter.”
Anderson did not have a comment as to the reasoning behind the random allocation of start times. We reached out to UCD for an answer and have yet to receive a response at the time of publishing.
Rosie Roberts Kuntz – Assistant News Editor
