Classes started in three weeks. The card was still missing.
Baker College used a OneCard for student refunds and financial-aid disbursements. The first email said mine was on the way. More than a month later, nothing had arrived.
I wrote support and called it a large issue.
Going back to school already felt like a logistical experiment. I was working as a CTO, supporting Peek on the side, building another infrastructure business, and traveling regularly. The information-systems program made sense on paper. Finding hours for it was a different problem.
The card was a small part of that system, but it had to work. I needed to know where it was, how the loan amount would be applied, and what would happen once classes began.
This was not the first time the unfinished degree had come back into view. I had left college after moving from molecular biology into technology and spent the following years building a career that moved much faster than the academic plan.
Re-entry was supposed to close the gap. I had changed into a program that matched the director and CTO work I was already doing and asked whether some of that experience could count.
The administrative pieces were less exciting. Cards, transfers, financial-aid questions, course portals, and ten-business-day processing windows all came before the class itself.
Support eventually helped track the card. I received it later in the month and activated it online.
For the moment, classes were three weeks away and the piece of plastic that was supposedly on its way was nowhere in the apartment.