Home on the Range:
Roaming Students Need a Good One

by Robert S. Hong 

The laptop initiative has enabled students to access the web when roaming through three buildings on campus, but requires them to purchase often expensive notebook computers.

Although the university has provided some resources to assist the students with the initiative, some feel it could do more.

"It would be helpful if we had lockers so we wouldn't have to lug heavy equipment around, said Angelina Adams, from the journalism and mass communications school, "Plus it would keep them safe."

Journalism and mass communications has provided several tables in the hallways of its building where students can sit and access the Internet with relative quiet. JMC student Shahrouz Tavakoli, said heoften sits at the tables in Dwight Bental Hall to work on his computer.

"It is becoming useful, at first I thought it was very unnecessary," he said.

He agreed that lockers for students would be a helpful improvement. "I think lockers would be nice," he said. "People can get back problems carrying the laptop around all day."

Tavakoli feels it might not be safe to leave a laptop unattended, even in lockers.

The campus has provided some resources to help students along in the initiative. Computer Science Senior Rubeun Tan is himself one of these resources. Sitting at his 1.1 Gigahert Celeron laptop in the Eastern corridor of Dwight Bentel Hall, Tan spends much of his time assisting students with problems connecting onto the wireless network.

"The university hired me to be here to help people with their computers," Tan said. He feels the laptops in the building are relatively safe, because almost everyone already has their own.

They could use more tables, he said. "Or maybe more people like me, because I can only work at certain times around my classes."

Tan is just one of the technical resources that the University has planned for the initiative. SJSU Provost Marshall Goodman, who is responsible for the funding of the project, said the university has much more in the works.

"We are sort of in the testing phase," Goodman said. "We'll see what happens with these departments, and then we'll know what to adjust."

Goodman said the school has definite plans to expand the project to other departments in the university. When it finally does, Goodman wants proper resources for the students.

"Other schools have information areas and help desks available to the students," he said. "If the money is there, San Jose State will have them too."

Goodman said that when the new Clark Hall, the old university library, opens in 2005, an assistance center will become available for students who need computer help.

Some students feel the school is in need of more accommodations right now. Ashleigh Moore, who studies digital media, said she thinks the laptop initiative could use more facilities and more publicity.

"I haven't really seen anything about it," she said. "So I don't know what things we need to have."