With COVID-19 turning everyone’s world upside down, many are having to adapt their lives in many different ways and that includes students enrolled at West Texas A&M University trying to finish out the spring semester in the middle of a pandemic. This is where WTAMU has stepped in to help students who need a WiFi connection to complete assignments from the comfort of the individual’s car.

According to a WTAMU press release “Drive-In Wi-Fi sites are open 24/7 to community members on the public WTCONNECT network with the “gobuffsgo” passcode, and students, faculty and staff are able to use their usual WT network source. The designated lots are those at the First United Bank Center and Mary Moody Northen Hall in Canyon and the Harrington Academic Hall in Amarillo”.

With this being implemented to help students who may not have a stable WiFi network in the Canyon area. A location in Amarillo has been established as well. I decided to try out the Wifi Community locations to see how well they worked.

I chose the location of Mary Moody Northern Hall, I needed to type an assignment for one of my classes so I drove to the Mary Moody parking lot. I chose a parking space and connected through the WT Connect WiFi source on my laptop with the password provided and to my surprise it worked very well.

Being able to sit in the comfort of my car in a safe environment, work on my school assignments and carry on about my day was a great feeling knowing I was being safe for myself and the safety of others

“Online learning is a great tool in a time of social distancing, but internet access is still a barrier for those who rely on the University Wi-Fi network for their coursework,” said James Webb, chief information officer at WTAMU. “Network Services has been able to extend the University’s Wi-Fi to several of our parking lots as a public service for the community, faculty, staff and students. This is a great way to stay connected in a safe and secure way,” Webb said.

With three locations open, two being in Canyon and one in Amarillo, I can really see this having a huge impact on students and faculty needing to use this service. It is a way to stay on top of assignments and tasks given to faculty and students that still need to be met.

Under the circumstances we are all under right now it is easy to dwell on the negatives and the uncertain however, for the Buffs this may be seen as a silver lining to a bad situation. Being able to have a place to work that is safe and reliable may be a huge uplift in the uncertain situation right now.