It’s about that time again, registration time. A point in every young college student’s life where they get the chance to pick their classes and ultimately shape their own collegiate destinies. It’s also a time where students face a number of bureaucratic nightmares. This year’s nightmare goes by the name of Spire. The administration’s newest pet, Spire kicked the decrepit Wise to the curb and made promises for efficient, user friendly, academic reliance. “I’ll eat up all that annoying red tape,” said Spire as we blindly placed our faith in course selection, housing registration and academic record keeping to this charismatic beast. There’s an old saying that goes, be careful what you wish for.

I understand Spire is barely a year old and that all the “kinks” haven’t been worked out yet. But I do believe that they could have done a better job at this version 1.0. As far as user-friendly goes, I remember it taking 15 minutes just to get my schedule onto the right semester, let alone to start picking any classes. Then you have to click on a separate link to get all the course listings before beginning to even search for any courses to see if they are actually offered at that particular semester.

When you do find a class that you may be interested in taking, there’s a chance that you won’t even find it once you’ve searched for it. Will it give you a reason? No. Some courses just didn’t make it from the course guide onto the database. Others are only for specific people, like honors community freshmen. Still others you need to specifically sign up for with the department or professor.

Let’s not even get into the ordeal that any of the incoming freshmen will face. Sure you can sign up for any class you want and it’ll tell you if you get into it right away. Just as long as you want to sign up for Entomology 104 or Intro to Swedish you’ll be fine. Oh you want to take communication classes? Well you’re going to have to wait for everyone else to finish taking them first, then you’ll get your chance.

So how can you register for any of these classes that Spire doesn’t recognize as ever existing? First you’ll want to go to the registrar’s office, where they will send you to the department that offers the class. Who will then in turn send you back to the registrar’s office where they’ll give you a form to have the academic dean of that department sign. The department will then tell you that you first need the professor teaching the course’s permission to take the class. Who will, of course, be out of town for the next two weeks, in which case, you’ll want to shoot yourself in the foot rather than deal with this administrative redundancy. You’ll probably get the foot treated faster than you will get that class you want anyway.

Now call me a traditional kind of guy, but I remember a time when we could physically hold a pre-reg guide and actually see what course we were picking while registering for them. And if the course wasn’t there, we didn’t register for it, instead of getting your hopes up just to search for a class to find that it isn’t offered. Sure, the phone registration had its problems, many of which Spire hasn’t remedied, but we all got to know the feminine voice behind the system, telling us to choose another action code. She was a friend, a guide through the administrative ether, which, while frustration set in, could provide some assistance, albeit limited as it was.

Spire, on the other hand, becomes a silent foe, mocking us in our time of desperation. It lies in wait, sending us on an online “wild goose chase” from one page to another, searching for the answer.

Little by little, Spire seems to be less of a student’s registration savior, and more like a beast of burden. A burden to all of us who need those few remaining class requirements to actually graduate on time so we may focus on life’s many other pressures.

I think it’s about time we showed the administration what they have unleashed upon our campus. They should be subjected to Spire’s devious ways. Have them try and use it’s confusing functions and windows to register for something as simple as, let’s say, a parking permit, and they will see what kind of logistical monster they have fostered for the supposed betterment of the UMass community.