WTF ROSI
August 8th, 2009 by LoriWere you part of the “ROSI incident”? Yesterday at 6:00 am, the gates opened for everyone trying to get into courses with an enrolment indicator of “P.” Then hundreds of U of T students everywhere spent almost 12 hours unsuccessfully trying to enrol for courses.
The night before I planned to wake up at 5:45 am to prepare for battle. Unfortunately, I ended up sleeping in until 6:30 and spent two hours doing this (repeatedly logging in and clicking on “Course Enrolment”):
until I had to go to work… where I continued to try to enrol because. I’m not even sure if it would even have made a difference had I been logged in at exactly 6:00.
Curious to see if anyone else was experiencing the same difficulties as me, I consulted LiveJournal and Twitter. Indeed, there were dozens of frustrated students receiving the same “very high load” error message:
Natata4ever: “arghhh ROSI.. why do u have to crash on me =( woke up at 6am for nothing”
amandach: “6am. ROSI. Too many students awake at one time. FML.”
Stephen_Job: “first tweet ever: [bleep] you, ROSI
BradBrisco: “Die ROSI with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.”
ohcollide: “ROSI raaaaaaaage. I feel like this is some torturous degree requirement I wasn’t aware of when I decided to go to University.”
jama22: “ROSI taunts by letting you go one step closer towards course registration, and then denying you at the last minute with cryptic errors”
BradBrisco: “It’s days like today I wish I didn’t go to the Univeristy of Toronto. Nearing the 6th hour mark of ROSI failure.”
By 4:00 (!!) it seemed like the clogging problem was finally resolved, and this notice went up:
“We regret the poor system response you have experienced on the SWS today (Aug. 7). Staff across the Information + Technology Services portfolio have been working around the clock and have implemented changes that have relieved some of the problems and continue to pursue the issue.”
Hopefully this doesn’t happen again next year, or on August 14th, when the Open Enrolment round is. It’s a ridiculous waste of time and extremely frustrating.
p.s. You would think that after so many years, and with so many fabulous Computer Science students coming out of U of T, they would have eliminated problems like this by now 
August 8th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
XD Thank goodness I didn’t have to do anything on ROSI, but the same thing happened but not as bad when summer course enrollment started. And where did you get the ROSI figure? I thought they stopped using that logo either this year or the year before.
August 8th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
I’ll give you a pro tip for next time. Log on to ROSI the night before. Install the firefox plugin check for change. Set it to check every minute so your session does not time out. Leave computer on all night. Wake up at leisurely time. Enroll.
This worked for me my last year, they may have fixed this hack
August 8th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
That is brilliant! I will try that next time.
August 10th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Oooh, yes, @Danny, that is indeed brilliant!
Also, @Jess (and excuse my blatant, blatant self-promo for a sec, Lor): I lol’d when I read your comment because I went down to SIS (student information systems) to just last week to ask why ROSI retired. Find out on Wednesday morning over at UpbeaT: http://blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca/UpbeaT/
Regarding the figure, it was produced in limited edition by the people who made Gumby and Pokey for the 2004 Frosh.
August 10th, 2009 at 10:37 am
I didn’t get the ROSI figure from Frosh; I bought it from a vending machine in Sanford Fleming for a few cents. I guess some engineers put it in there. It’s fun to squish in times of frustration… haha.
August 11th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
@Cynthia: I just remembered the logo ’cause our assistant registrar said to us on an orientation session, “And here is ROSI and her logo… I sincerely hope that the firm who designed her is out of business.”
August 12th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
@Jess, lol, why? Did the assistant registrar not like ROSI? I adore the little thing, and even more with the whimsical CN Tower on its head.
August 12th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Oh yes, and if I may: http://is.gd/2dHze
ROSI post is hot off the press!
/shameless plug
March 25th, 2010 at 9:21 am
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