Editor’s Note: PGM staff members decide on the topic of a Staff Ed together. The staff as a whole provides opinions and content included in this Staff Ed to provide thoughts about and shed light on solutions for happenings at Pepperdine.
Imagine walking to your dorm — hands full of groceries, backpack on, huffing and puffing. If you’ve done this recently, it was also probably raining. Upon arriving at the door, the thought comes to mind: “I need to figure out where my ID is.”
For students at Pepperdine, this has probably happened more times than one. Students can lose their ID cards and need to call an RA to get let in: They can’t find the cards in their backpacks, or they simply just forget them in their wallets in the dorm.
Now, many people don’t even carry around a wallet — all of their cards are conveniently stored in their Apple Wallet. Student IDs should be too.
The only function students really need on their ID is the scanning function to get into campus buildings and to pay for food with meal points. All cards can be scanned while they are in an Apple Wallet, as seen with credit cards and plane boarding passes, according to Apple’s website.
The chances of someone losing their ID card are pretty high, but the chances of losing a phone are pretty low. Phones are nearly never left behind, and the second they go missing, it is usually a short matter of time before it is noticed.
Not to mention the other factors involved in not having access to your ID card. The first resort is often contacting a roommate to open the door, causing a disruption in someone’s day other than one’s own. When asking a member from HRL for a remote unlocking of the door, one has to pay a $10 fee to Housing and Residence Life, and if the card is lost altogether, the only fix left is paying for a new one, according to the HRL website.
Many students carry their ID cards in their phone cases or on wallets attached to their phones, but that is just one extra thing to keep track of. Then students have one card in their phone and one in their actual wallet — it is an unorganized system.
As busy college students, the last thing to worry about should be a small ID card controlling the fate of an already hectic day. Imagine finally arriving at the Caf for that quick meal between classes and realizing the card used to pay for it is sitting at least a 10-20 minute walk away — every hungry college student’s worst nightmare.
The addition of student ID cards into mobile wallets would be one less thing for all students to worry about. Studying, classes and trying to make time for a social life take up enough time, and having IDs in students’ phones would be one less worry flooding their minds each day.
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