Hailey Brune – Opinion Columnist

I’m sure a lot of us are feeling the shift from Webadvisor to MyGustavus. I’ve heard some mixed feelings from staff and students and I understand the need for the shift. Webadvisor was getting to be old and wasn’t working as well compared to something new. Change is hard and we didn’t receive a lot of instructions on how to navigate everything. Personally, I see a lot of interesting things with MyGustavus, and I don’t mind the switch. However, there are a few problems that stick out to me and have stuck out to me when talking to other students.
The first thing is our Caf account balances. On Webadvisor we could see our monthly breakdown and how much money we had each day for the month we were working on. During the grace period when we had both MyGustavus and Webadvisor we had a way to check our balance. Now that we only have MyGustavus we can’t check what our caf balance is. So, to know how much you have left you have to ask the employees. Assuming they all know how to check, it’s not busy, and you ask before they leave your account information. There’s also the anxiety of having to ask them for the information and what their answer is going to be, as well as remembering it as soon as you step away.
I find it really frustrating because I don’t want to ask somebody what my balance is. I feel the most uncomfortable when I’m in the Caf getting food. So normally I’m anxious when I’m there and I get so focused on getting food and leaving that I don’t even think about my balance. Or what if you normally checked your account daily. Then there’s the simple fact of losing money at the end of the month. We all know that if you don’t use your monthly Caf money then you lose it. Is that really fair, though, if we have no way of checking it ourselves? I’m normally very meticulous about not losing money with the Caf. Now that I can’t check my account myself I’ve been just trying to spend a lot and hope that I’m close.
While talking to another Gustavus student they shared their struggles with trying to find paperwork and forms with MyGustavus as well as their anxiety of having to learn how to use it for registration soon. They talked about how Webadvisor had personal information in one spot, as well as important forms in an organized way. It took them hours to search through other Gustavus websites trying to find those forms. Webadvisor had important or often used forms on the website so they could easily be found. MyGustavus doesn’t have this as of yet. So, you have to reach out to the office personally or look on the Gustavus website to find them.
Now, I understand that things take time. This is a new website and they have to figure it all out, but the problem is that there’s no communication. We were told some of the things that wouldn’t be available with MyGustavus, but with no solution or timeline. Not only did we not get told when those missing things would be on MyGustavus but we also weren’t told if they’d be put on there at all. So, as students who have to use these services and websites we’re told nothing. It’s been a few months since we switched over to MyGustavus, and we haven’t received one update.
Whether it’s how to use the website, how to find stuff, or what they’ll be doing to make it work better for us and replace missing things. Communication goes a long way, and would make many students happy, but there hasn’t been any. Which feels a little silly considering how many emails we get daily.
In general, MyGustavus is a decent website in my opinion. I don’t have too many problems with it, though I haven’t done registration through it yet so we’ll see how difficult that is to figure out. I think it’d be nice if instructions were sent out to students the closer we get to registration. In case there are students who are anxious about using the site, as well as for the large number of students who used Webadvisor last time since it was familiar. I think it’d also be really nice if we were given any kind of update.
Just something letting us know that we’ll be able to see our Caf account balances next year, or when that might be fixed. We’re informed about so much stuff everyday. I think we’d appreciate being informed about the stuff that impacts all of us personally and financially.