I recently had a rather remarkable experience-at least a relatively remarkable one-at this year's room selection. As a rising junior lined up to study abroad, I was guaranteed housing. But that wasn't what made the difference; I was guaranteed housing last year as well. The remarkable aspect of this year's experience was my friend's lottery number, 4F. We walked in, chose our Ziv and left. In and out. All the pain and angst from last year's selection process, which resulted in my sophomore single in North Quad, was avoided just by chance.

As long as there are better and worse places to live, any housing selection process will come with a certain quantity of delightful stress. But the system we all too intimately know and love at Brandeis is simply antiquated.

Rather than line Upper Sherman with community advisors and send students from holding cell to holding cell in a Disney World-style queue, the Department of Community Living should work toward finishing its entry into the 21st century.

It's nice that room selection numbers are now distributed via e-mail rather than University mailboxes as they were a couple years ago. But as part of its attempts to increase the practicality of the current housing lottery system, DCL ought to seek greater assistance from Library and Technology Services in crafting a new and technologically superior system.

Though the University lacks the number of rooms necessary to house all its students, we can all think of at least a handful of ways in which the system could be drastically revamped, especially with a greater utilization of technology.

While I'm not nearly computer savvy enough to describe the exact ways in which the housing selection system could be revamped, I can propose at least several conceptual changes.

Most importantly, there is no reason for the actual process of entering a physical room to select your housing. We all have computers, and there's no reason that we need to show up to a location in order to actually select our housing from a chart laid out on a table in front of us in some chaotic room. The University already has us electronically signing online contracts, such as the famous checking of the box on SAGE (yes, for room selection), so that wouldn't present an obstacle.

And each semester we select and manage our classes over the Internet through the University's Web site-why can't the same be done with housing?

Obviously the stakes with housing are a bit higher than with a class that you can likely just add to your schedule later on. However, technologically and conceptually, room selection cannot be so drastically different.

For instance, especially for rising juniors and seniors, students could have the option of getting into groups of four or six, or perhaps smaller sizes for Charles River Apartments, and then receive a housing lottery number as a group. That situation doesn't alleviate the randomness of the housing process, but it would at least partially rid the system of some of the factors that often affect interpersonal relationships during the nearly month-long period after students receive their lottery numbers until their actual room selection appointment. This system would be subject to certain problems; for instance, it might be difficult for students to estimate their chances of getting housing in a six-person group versus a four-person group. But any housing system will face certain issues. In any situation at this university, not all groups that apply for housing would receive it. But that part is truly no different than the way it is now. What is different, however, is that you will already be bundled with a group of fellow students with whom you'll maintain the option of living with in an off-campus setting.

Additionally, there really need not be any explicit housing lottery numbers at all. The current worksheet that DCL has students use to more clearly think out their housing selection preferences prior to their room selection appointment could be transformed into an electronic format that processes and prioritizes specific housing requests on a random basis. This way, the system remains fair without subjecting students to the unnecessary in-person hassles associated with the current system. This may not ultimately be an effective solution for rising sophomores, but it could likely apply to rising upperclassmen.

As the University's student population continues increasing through at least the 2013 to 2014 academic year, I imagine that the University will have to find some magnificently creative ways to house as many of us as possible.

While the University-and more specifically DCL-searches for a more permanent housing solution, I urge them to consider updating the room selection system and making all our lives just a little bit easier.