All I’d ever known was a doomed system.

As a first time college student in September 2015 at SCC, ctcLink was how I found and registered for classes. It’s also how I paid for classes online.

That fall quarter was ctcLink’s inaugural debut at CCS and a handful of other community colleges across Washington state.

It wasn’t smooth sailing but I adapted to the system and made my peace with the oddities that were a constant presence. As a student at both SFCC and SCC, I would have random messages pop up every time that I selected SFCC as the campus I wanted to pick classes for.

Having accepted my fate to a rough experience when trying to pursue my education, I was curious about the update that ctcLink had this quarter.

The appearance of the updated interface was much more appealing that its predecessor. It gave me hope. I sat down to register for next quarter’s classes. But my excitement quickly turned to frustration when every day took multiple seconds to load and made a 10-minute chore into more than a half-hour. It was annoying. As a college student, spare time is not something I have in spades.

I complained about the update to fellow students who experienced the same frustration. One of my friends had to postpone registering for classes after she ran out of time before class to do so.

But as I continued to use ctcLink, it grew on me. I can rearrange the home screen layout by clicking and pulling each both, similarly to moving around apps on my iPhone. It shows me the classes I’ve looked at recently so I can go straight to them if I wish.

It definitely still has rough edges. They don’t display the “&” symbol when selecting which subject to look at class options, which again is annoying. And you have to be careful to make sure you are enrolling in a class and not adding it to your shopping cart in the process of signing up for classes. The same thing goes when joining a class waitlist. It gives you the option to join the class if a seat opens up or add it to your shopping cart.

My ability to navigate this updated world has improved. I’m registered for classes and accepted the oddities of ctcLink once again as this struggling system works to correct itself with an updated format.

This updated ctcLink is still vastly more efficient than the first edition. Hopefully it gets better with age. And more updates.