The smooth registration process for the Spring 2024 semester sparked concerns among the UNC Chapel Hill administration that students are becoming too comfortable with the current format of ConnectCarolina, the website used by UNC students for everything from signing up for classes to paying tuition.

In a press conference last Tuesday, Will Miller, a spokesperson for the university, said that this is the first time students have bested the software. 

“The main cause of concern is that when students become acclimated to ConnectCarolina’s little quirks and bugs, things work almost too well,” Miller said. 

The University has provided the IT department with a $2 million grant to give the site a complete makeover as students go into the registration process for Summer and Fall 2024.

The newest edition of ConnectCarolina will have state-of-the-art features like hyperlinks that lead to nowhere, endless loading screens and class searches that only find filled lectures. The IT department also announced that the updated site will only be compatible up and coming search engine DuckDuckGo. 

These drastic changes have been accompanied by a wave of backlash from those who believe making ConnectCarolina even less user-friendly is the wrong course of action. Many students have taken to Twitter to voice their frustration.

“How is Chancellor Roberts going to allow this? Public institutions used to have values,” said Twitter user Hugh_Janus42069 in a trending Tweet from Wednesday. 

Interim Chancellor Lee Roberts responded with a bar from popular Hip-Hop artist Lil Wayne saying, “Tell em keep my name out they mouth cuz they dont know me.” It is unclear whether Roberts meant to log in to a burner account prior to the response.

The changes raise the question of why the university cannot simply fix the current edition of ConnectCarolina that is plagued with a slew of issues. It seems like it would be less timely and expensive to just update the website, but UNC’s plan is better in the long-term, Miller said.

“Fixing ConnectCarolina would require giving into the masses, and that’s not the Carolina way,” Miller said. “The key word in ConnectCarolina is ‘connect.’ The website gives people something to struggle over as a team, and that sense of community is everything.”