Give my.tcu.edu a chance
COMMENTARY
Managing Editor Laura McFarland is a senior news-editorial journalism and English major from Houston.

When I first heard about my.tcu.edu, I dismissed the idea.

It seemed like the university was spending even more of my money to offer a useless service. I logged on a few times, took a cursory look around and thought, “This is a waste of my time.”

Then it was announced that students would have to register for next semester’s classes through the site. I had to look at the site to get registration times and to sign up for my classes. Now, advising and registration are almost over for the semester, but my.tcu.edu is still here.

As a senior, I have spent more than three years trying to figure out most of TCU’s little tricks, and now they were telling me to learn a completely new system for my last semester. It was kind of upsetting.

But realizing my annoyance wouldn’t change the fact that using the site was inevitable, I logged on to the site.

I’ve spent years exploring the TCU Web site, for one reason or another, so I am already familiar with all of the pages this new site has links to.

But thinking back to my freshman and sophomore years, I remembered how hard it was to know where to click to find needed information. Unless you always have the help desk at the other end of a phone line to answer questions, it can get confusing.

If you look on my.tcu.edu, you’ll see links to a lot of familiar pages. Clicking on the “Class search” link takes you to the same page you would get going through FrogNet. But even though it is the same page, the packaging makes it a little different.

For freshmen, transfer or existing students, this site takes a number of different services that have always been available to us through different sites or by e-mail and groups them together. Best of all, the site is personalized just for you.

Now, students can check their class schedule, the semester calendars and even make online tuition payments from the same place. It’s possible to look at the TCU Announce notices on the site, so you can finally just erase that huge e-mail version students get every week, if you didn’t already do so.

The site isn’t perfect. There’s always going to be some service people want that isn’t offered. Or so you think.

I thought what the site really needs is access to academic audits and summaries. When I went back to explore again, I found that the site did have links to these.

The site is a good idea, once you get used to it. So before you just dismiss the site, take the time to really explore it.