On the morning of Monday Nov. 4, many seniors logged on to my.fordham.edu to register for their last round of classes at Fordham. For many, however, this soon became a daunting task. Just minutes after the 7 a.m. start time, the banner system crashed, sending many students into a panic.
“I tried logging on to myfordham since 6:55 and did not get through until 7:22,” Avanika Kirpalani, GSB ’14, said.
Instead of seeing a screen where she could type in the class numbers, she received a banner error message stating: “There are too many simultaneous logins — please wait and try again.”
Students who registered on Monday had the highest amount of credits in both schools — over 87 for the Gabelli School of Business and over 104 for Fordham College Rose Hill.
“I tried repeatedly but to no avail,” Kirpalani said. “I have never experienced so much trouble when registering during my years at Fordham.”
This caused many who were trying to get their last few classes in to get locked out. Dr. Beth Knobel, assistant professor of communication and media studies, said that one of her advisees suffered because of the server crash and missed getting into one of the classes she needed.
Fordham IT issued a statement after the issue saying, “From approximately 7:00 a.m. to 7:05 a.m. this morning [Nov. 4], some students may have experienced difficulties attempting to register for classes via the portal due to a high number of simultaneous connections. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused. Fordham IT is aware and researching the situation.”
Students were concerned about registration on Tuesday, when a higher volume of students hit the servers. However, according to Nolan Silbernagel, FCRH ’14, everything seemed to go smoothly.
“Registration went well for the first time in my Fordham career,” Silbernagel said. “The Internet didn’t go down. I got the classes I wanted and there were no weird or random holds.”
Still, many non-seniors are worried about their upcoming registration dates. Elizabeth Hughes, GSB ‘15, registers on Wednesday, Nov. 5. She is concerned about losing wireless access since this has happened to her and her roommates in the past.
“I’m nervous that at 7:02 a.m. when I go to register, I’ll get bumped off the system when I go to type in the CRN number and it’ll change my cohort which would alter my whole schedule,” Hughes said.
Many students, like Hughes, advise underclassmen to use an ethernet cable if at all possible or go somewhere outside their dorm room.
“I’m planning to go to Hughes Hall in the morning,” Hughes said.
Otherwise students could end up like Kirpalani.
“It’s unfortunate I had to experience this during my senior year,” she said.
