Due to the current pandemic, many students have decided to return home early this semester. While some may still live close to California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB), many students live much further. CSUMB has a diverse study body with students coming from all around the world that have had to make the difficult decision to go home.
Some students have unfortunately had packages delivered to their CSUMB address. For those living close to campus, this isn’t much of a problem, but for students living further away, they have been stuck waiting to know what will happen to their packages.
On April 27, students with packages on campus received an email giving them a few options on what they could do. Students could either pick up the package themselves, have a friend get it for them or purchase a shipping label and have it forwarded to their home address. However, housing only gave students a week to figure something out.
If students didn’t make a decision by May 4, their packages would immediately be returned to the sender. This has raised concerns from some students. Returning packages to the sender does not always guarantee the student will get money back on purchased items.
“At first glance I’d be upset, that’s not a lot of time to figure out what to do and it doesn’t seem that they took a lot of students’ unique situations into account,” said third-year student, Victoria White. “However … the school can’t afford to hold onto the packages forever, so I can somewhat see their reasoning. I think they should’ve brought this issue to the students attention sooner and that would’ve given them more time to come up with a solution that would’ve better suited the situation.”
Prior to the email being sent out, a petition was made on change.org stating that CSUMB needs to forward packages to students’ home residence. As of May 3, the petition has gotten 68 signatures.
On May 4, all students who indicated they would like their packages forwarded to them received an email with instructions on what to do. Housing provided students with the weight of their package along with the dimensions so they can properly fill out the form for the shipping label.
Students will have until Friday, May 8 to fill out the form and email a PDF to student housing with the shipping label. While students will need to pay for the shipping label, they will not need to pay for pickup or any other additional services.
Any packages still left after Friday, May 8 will be returned to the sender.