"I'm taking Econ with Greycrown Noname #1 and Greycrown Noname #2 and Greycrown Noname #3 and..."

“I’m taking Econ with Greycrown Noname #1 and Greycrown Noname #2 and Greycrown Noname #3 and…”

Because it’s that magical time of the year when Bwog wants to make sure we know at least one kid in our massive Russian lit lecture (what? Don’t hate on Tolstoy), we sent Features Editor Alexander Pines to CourseWorks-land in order to find out why your roster page likely has nothing but grey faces. Here’s what he found.

Remember when New CourseWorks became New New CourseWorks (which is just called CourseWorks, unless you have a question, in which case you’re still emailing New CourseWorks, but that’s beside the point) and the shiny new Roster feature was unveiled? In the early days of the revamp, you could click “roster” and see the names and UNIs of everyone in your prospective classes, which was great for stalking that cute guy with short brown hair who wears oxfords and jeans in your Econ class and for seeing how many of your friends would be in your seminars and lectures without, well, actually talking to your friends.

However, this feature has basically been rendered useless after, according to Communications Director for CUIT Jessie Kalay, several schools and deans reached out to change the system to be “opt in” rather than the existing “opt out” in the name of preserving the privacy of students. This change happened in the spring of 2013 and has not affected an instructor’s ability to see enrolled students’ name, ID photo, and UNI.

Unfortunately, it would appear that there isn’t any way to just have your name and not your photo show up in the roster (in case you’re me and Columbia wouldn’t let you change your ID photo without a fee, or you dislike your photo for another reason), but if you don’t mind letting your classmates see the glory that was your shining prefrosh face, here’s how to opt in:

  1. Log in to CW (you should know how to do this by now)
  2. Click “Profile” under My Workspace in the left navigation. If you don’t see it, click “My Courses” in the top right corner
  3. Click on “Privacy” in the Profile section
  4. Check the box next to Show Official Photo and click the “Save settings” button.

Happy FB stalking!