Julian Moran finally got through to El Camino College's phone registration system Tuesday morning — a full week past his registration appointment and after days of frantic dialing.

“I didn't get the class I wanted, but I think it's because I was forced to wait,” the 39-year-old Torrance resident said.

Hundreds of El Camino College students like Moran were prevented from enrolling in classes last week when a computer hard drive failed and shut down the automated phone and online registration systems.

The systems came back up briefly Monday but crashed again when all the students who couldn't register the previous week tried to get through, said Ann Garten, spokeswoman for the community college near Torrance.

“We had five days worth of students trying to access registration,” she said. That created an overload for the college's 48 phone lines and Web site.

As of Tuesday, phone and online registration systems were back up.

The shutdown affected about 500 students who had registration appointments scheduled the week of Aug. 12. Students can register any time after their appointments but not before.

Slightly more than 1,000 students — an unusually high number — enrolled in classes Monday morning before the system crashed again, college officials said.

Garten said the increasing popularity of phone and computer registration may have outstripped capacity at the 21,000-student college.

“Because over the last couple of years more and more students have registered on the phone and the Web rather than in person, we may perhaps be outgrowing our system,” she said.

College officials hope to secure funds to add phone lines and upgrade their computer infrastructure with a $394.5 million bond measure on the November ballot.

El Camino College has had an automated phone registration system for about four years. It added online enrollment a year and a half ago.

Even with the snag, Moran said the computerized system beats the long lines of walk-in registration. When he finally got through Tuesday, it took just a few quick hits to sign up for his automotive repair class.

“Once the system came up and I was able to execute the process, it took me all of five minutes,” he said.

Daily Breeze

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