Students can now ask departments and counselors a wide variety of questions, from finding out which classes are needed to graduate to payment inquiries, in a new feature on MyUCLA.

The feature, which launched last week, was created so students could communicate more efficiently with administrators, said Arun Pasricha, director of Student Affairs Information Technology, or SAIT.

Joel Bellon, a SAIT manager, said in the past year his team worked with different departments and students to receive feedback and improve the feature while it was in development.

Christian Spreitzer, director of Undergraduate Education Information Technology, said all the undergraduate counseling units and several academic departments and administrative offices use the system. He added they are working to add more departments and offices to this system.

Lanya Abdulkarem, a third-year psychobiology student, said she thinks the feature will make it more convenient for students to ask questions and said many students do not have the time to walk to Murphy Hall.

Jenna Grossinger, a third-year communication studies student, said she thinks the feature will only be helpful if counselors and administrators respond within a reasonable amount of time.

Pasricha said the wait time for each response will vary depending on each department. Pasricha added the wait time should be equivalent to how long a student typically waits for a counselor or administrator to reply through email.

Ginny Wang, a second-year computer science student, said she thinks using the new feature will be easier than having to search for specific administrator emails.

Contributing reports from Amanda Wilcox, Daily Bruin reporter.

Published by Rupan Bharanidaran

Bharanidaran is the News editor. He was previously a news reporter for the campus politics beat, covering student government and the UCLA administration.

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