For most students attending Diablo Valley College, transferring is the end goal. Whether it be a university or a state school, we all want to eventually get out of DVC and get on with our lives.

Unfortunately, the bureaucratic system of higher education doesn’t make transferring all that easy.

I’ve probably been attending DVC too long. Part of this is my fault for taking my time, trying to “find myself” while studying here. However, a large part of the reason I have been here for so long is due to the poor work of the admissions and counseling offices, and the overall handling of class registration.

I think it’s a good thing that students who have been here longer have a priority registration date, over first or second semester students. I am not going to argue against that. But the fact that InSite would crash, spazz out, or just refuse to load is insane!

I even called the school to ask about the crash and they responded, “We’re sorry it’s like this, but we have invested a lot of money into the program, so we can’t back out now. If it makes you feel any better — at least all the students are having this problem.”

If the site crashes for registration, there is basically no point in having a registration date. I can’t even register that day.

Get a new site, or space out registration days.

Now, since I started my DVC career five years ago, I have seen four different counselors. None of them, not even one, has presented me with helpful information.

From recommending unnecessary classes, to giving me wrong information about transfer dates, semesters added up and soon I’d been here longer than I can count…one, two, three…and yeah, that next number.

Counselors don’t seem to have coordinated with one another at all, or even feel the need to log anything into the system. When I would see a new counselor it would be the whole introduction all over again. What I was studying? What was my school plan? They even asked me, “What did your last counselor tell you?” The whole experience has felt endless.

Lastly: Admissions. What’s going on guys?

I am specifically talking about the admissions center which is staffed by one person who is about to go on their lunch break all the time.

I understand sitting behind a desk and talking to frustrated students all day can be a tiring job, but when DVC is the fourth highest transfer school in California I can’t even imagine what other schools admissions offices look like.

This was just my experience, and maybe because I have a platform to voice it, it might get heard. But now you, my fellow students, you will have a chance to make your voice heard. If you take an English class. A new prompt will allow you — in 300 words, half of this article — to tell the school your experience.

But don’t be scared, it is your right to explain to the school that you may have had a terrible experience and give them real examples of how they could fix it. So I encourage you to take these prompts not as another class assignment, but as a real way to help the school improve upon a broken system.