Laptop bags, less help, more trouble for students

October 13, 2009 • Jill Lutz, Junior  
Filed under Opinion, Student Life

A question that a lot of students want answered is, why do we have to carry our laptops around separately this year? When I spoke to Technology Assistant, Mr. Vermillion, I found out the real problem is money. (Shocker!) He says, “Too many laptops are being broken, and last year alone we had roughly 135 get broken or damaged. When a laptop is broken it costs about $500 to fix, and the student only pays $100.” The school pays the difference, so obviously you can see where there is a problem. Clearly the reason we have to carry our bags separately is because they want to lessen the amount of broken laptops, and they believe that will happen if we carry them in their cases. Well my question is, if the staff can enforce us to carry our laptops in their cases, couldn’t they just as well enforce us to carry them in their cases inside our book bags?

Some bags already have a built it case for a laptop. Go to any store that sells school book bags, and you will find that quite a few bags have this feature. So if you were a student that spent an extra five or ten bucks to get the bag that had the built in laptop case, wouldn’t you be a little frustrated if you now had to carry your laptops separate? I know I would be. Some students even asked if they could buy their own laptop case, and the answer was still no.

It’s also a hassle. Along with a purse, book bag, sports bag, and sometimes even breakfast or lunch, a computer bag is of inconvenience. I have dropped my computer bag more times than I would like to say, but that’s what happens when we have too many things to carry. We are Homo sapiens limited to two arms, so carrying around four or five different bags really doesn’t seem to balance well.

I feel that we are responsible, and should be able to carry our laptops in our book bags in their cases. And as I said earlier, if the staff can enforce us to carry our laptops in their cases, why can’t they enforce us to carry them in our book bags with their cases?

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