College is a time to mature. A chance to take on additional responsibilities. An opportunity to become independent.
Don’t worry if that doesn’t sound appealing to you.
ASUCD senator Chris Dietrich and the UC Davis Bookstore are here to hold your hand and look both ways for you before you cross the street.
With Dietrich leading the way, the UC Davis Bookstore installed a $5,000 vending machine in the basement of Olson Hall that sells bluebooks and Scantrons.
Saying that spending $5,000 on a paper dispenser wasn’t a wise decision would be an understatement.
Students who attend a university such as UC Davis are to be held to a certain standard. In order to be in position to purchase a blue book or Scantron for examination purposes, an individual should visit any of the university’s other testing material distribution outlets prior to examination. Additionally, students should have read their syllabi well in advance of the day of the test.
Five thousand dollars is a high price to pay for a slight convenience.
Prior to the installation of the machine, the university already had three accessible locations in which a student could purchase testing materials: the bookstore, the Corral and the Silo Bookstore.
Some of these locations are open for times that even exceed normal business hours.
Students who fail to obtain proper testing materials at one of these three locations within this generous timeframe – with previous knowledge of their examination dates – haven’t taken the most basic step to prepare for an exam.
If a student goes to class on an examination day in need of a Scantron or blue book, he or she can look to a classmate for assistance. Many students even bring extra testing materials to help forgetful classmates.
Still, if the bookstore was looking for another way to help students buy testing materials, it could have started selling them at the bakery in the ASUCD Coffee House instead.
The bakery is open for significantly longer than any other location in which testing materials could be purchased and wouldn’t have required spending thousands on a machine to handle transactions.
Bookstore administrators, however, expect the machine’s sales to offset these initial costs.
Still, there must be a wiser way to invest $5,000.
