The Waynesburg University residence halls have experienced a change in internet services over the summer before students made their way back onto campus this semester. This new service is known as Apogee. To help understand what Apogee is and how the shift has been from one service to another, Joshua Starsick, the senior director of Information Technology Services at Waynesburg University was able to break everything down. 

Starsick stated that Apogee is a type of internet service that is used for residence halls. He continued to mention that Apogee is one of the, “Largest services,” that are used for higher education. Apogee’s mission statement on their website even backs up that they are a very large service by stating, “Apogee serves over one million students at over 350 colleges and universities across the US.” 

The pieces for what Apogee is, as stated, was their exact vision from the start. On Apogee.us, they state that their mission is, “To give higher education the power to do and achieve more. Apogee will be recognized as the uncontested leader in higher education technology services delivery while maintaining our uncompromising focus on the campus experience.” 

Starsick stated that the shift was, “very smooth” and everything was done in a, “good timeframe.” He likes how fast Apogee was to have everything set up before the semester started. 

This shift was very important to Starsick because he stated that he listens to students’ demands. He mentioned that he heard about issues last year with service and connections and he wanted to make the transition to Apogee. Starsick also talked about how he even listens to gamers when it came to internet service last year. Starsick wanted to make sure to fix any issues students faced last year.

To get a better idea of how the new Internet this year was compared to last year, Waynesburg University sophomore Tyler Weber spoke about his opinion on it. Weber stated that this year he has noticed, “Better connection,” and, “everything loads faster.” Weber also mentioned that this year has been, “better for gaming” than last year.”

Weber also talked about how the first few weeks have gone. He stated, “It was slow the first few days but has been good ever since.” He has been pleased with the changes thus far and is happy to see everything run smoother than last year.

The biggest challenge that Starsick stated was, “poor connection in the evening,” for the first few nights. To fix this, Starsick was in contact with Apogee immediately and with their service they fixed the issue quickly. Starsick expressed that Apogee is very good at helping fix any issues students may have and they are able to get in contact with Apogee themselves on a 24/7 basis instead of having to go through many boundaries before they can get the issue resolved. 

Starsick had a message for students in case they have troubles in their rooms, “Don’t be afraid to call Apogee.” He went on to speak about the work they are doing with students and others around campus about how they are taking care of students and any problems they have with internet connection.