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I decided I had to investigate whether Chico State University had been doing anything about the Y2K bug. I wanted to ensure it wouldn't gobble up my future, or any other student's future for that matter. To find the answer, I sought out an authority to inform me on Chico State's Y2K readiness. In her makeshift office, once a study room, tucked behind the shelves of theses on the third floor of Meriam Library, I spoke with Linda Post, the Y2K coordinator at Chico State. With a team of interns, Post has been running an inventory of all areas of campus that could be affected by the Y2K bug. Together they've been coordinating solutions and disseminating information to the departments, faculty, staff and students for more than two years. "High priority on campus is health and safety," Post said. "And to that end, all the buildings are being checked, our heating/cooling, all those things have to work properly." That's all fine and dandy, but what good are my health and safety without the money to enjoy them? I need that biannual surge of funds I've become accustomed to. In other words, what about my financial aid? While she warned the school can't be sure that all other players who make financial aid work are 100 percent compliant, Post put my mind somewhat at ease. "If the federal government can't get us the financial aid checks, they don't cut the checks in time, or the electronic transmission doesn't work because of something, we have a mechanism to either forgive debts, or to roll over, or to lend .... It may be that if you have a housing contract, that you'll be forgiven for a month until the funds come in," she said. "You don't get disenrolled because you haven't paid your tuition, because you haven't had your financial aid check cut yet." OK, so the money may make it to me before my landlady kicks me and my animals out, but will I still exist in the university computers? Will the eight years of intensive schooling I struggled through to reach my senior year be all for nothing? "Everything, EVERYTHING on this campus will be backed up ahead of time and in multiple mediums, I would say. Not just tapes, but we'll have paper copies of things, and we'll have grades turned in," Post assured me. So the worst thing that could happen would be delays? "It sounds fairly positive because we are feeling pretty positive about it. We've been working on the mainframe systems, which are most of the student information systems. We've been working on [them] since '96 to bring them up to speed and doing a lot of testing ... to make sure we're not going to have any kinds of problems. But we also do back ups; we always did and we always will," Post said. So if my college career won't be lost to the turn of the millennium, is there anything fun and exciting that could happen, like power outages that close down the school? "If we lose power, we will have to shut down. We're not anticipating that. PG&E is not anticipating that. I really think it's gotten very over hyped," Post said. But being a bit of a cynic and having read some of PG&E's warm, fuzzy and all-too-vague public statements on their Y2K readiness, I asked Post if she thinks the utility company is being truthful. "A lot of big companies are purposefully vague because there's liability issues. But right now, PG&E can't guarantee you'll have power this afternoon, let alone come the year 2000. They've never been able to guarantee that, and they never will. If you look through the federal reports and their commissions that are out there, the grids are looking very good, so we're not too concerned," Post said. Even if we did have power outages, she thinks they would be no worse than any normal winter storm. "We lose power here every winter, and we've had to close the campus because of flooding and things like that ... that's regular disaster planning that we should be doing every winter anyway." While many students will be at their parents' homes for winter break, some, like myself, are stuck here in Chico and wondering what we are in for. "There are some personal responsibility things that everyone should do," Post said. "If you run a computer, you should check it. There are some free checkers out there. Student computing will end up having data checkers and Web sites that you can go to to have your computer checked. I think you should have your financial records and those kinds of things. You should be keeping copies of your bank statements." As a precaution, Post said it wouldn't be overkill to follow the Red Cross guidelines and have three to five days-worth of food, a flashlight with fresh batteries and a phone that works without power. To me, these seem to me like reasonable precautions and should be on your list of to do's, just in case. You could even view it as a great excuse to go out and buy all sorts of bad-for-me-but-yummie nonperishable foods like Spaghetti-O's (not bad when eaten cold), Pringles (you can play the container like a bongo for entertainment while the power is out) and deep fried pork rinds (come on, admit it, you always wondered what those things tasted like). But hear my warning: It would probably be wise to add dried prunes to your shopping list (you'll need them after 3-5 days without fresh fruits or vegetables.) If you need more assurance that we aren't facing the end of the world as students, check out some of the Chico State sites below.
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When
the media-hype about the Y2K bug started to escalate
earlier this year, I began having nightmares about my
school transcripts disappearing and my financial aid
drying up at the stroke of midnight, Jan. 1, 2000. While
I've never subscribed to "The End Of The World As We Know
It" notion of Y2K, in my sleep I've seen my years of
college work getting lost forever and pictured myself
wearing a paper hat and asking, "Would you like fries
with that?"
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