SOAR flies over our heads

In an age where young people are more adapted to the Internet than ever, it seems absurd to think that a website designed for students' benefit could cause them such trouble.

USM's SOAR is a website designed to help students manage their grades, monitor their progress, track their billing and create a schedule. For a site so necessary, its layout and overall navigation should be clearer.

Upon logging into the site, students are brought to a page with sparse design, few buttons and strange words: "Favorites," "Self Service," and more. Immediately, students might notice this site is a drastic change from the busy USM home page. The lacking design suggests that not much thought was put into the aesthetics of this site for students (the ones who allow USM to exist).

The fact that students initially have trouble with SOAR is understandable; its layout and word usage seem strange and unclear. It's also understandable, however, that after a while of attending USM, students will grow accustomed to the site they need to get through the year.

It seems astounding that Facebook can change its layout twice a year and, while upset by it, young people can adapt and occasionally figure out a way to reinstate the features they enjoyed from the previous version. However, SOAR, which seems to stay somewhat static, still gives students trouble. With this student site, it seems students are learning to navigate it - but just enough to get by.

Students themselves have nearly become web designers. Enter Myspace, the blog, the Wordpress, the Formspring - young people are not, for the most part, technology-illiterate. Perhaps if the site offered more creativity and options for students, they could design a SOAR that fit their needs.

SOAR is clearly not a front-burner issue for officials, however. The site is running fine, iTech is available for questions, students have the option to make an appointment and have someone do all the things they would need to do on SOAR - but that's not the point.

The website exists for the students' convenience. It would seem that a college tries to do this as a sort of "thank you" to them for tuition money, an assistance to aid their life, which was made more difficult upon paying to go to said college. SOAR, contrarily, seems to make students feel unappreciated, unsupported and confused.