Oberlin College ID

Your Oberlin College ID Card (OCID) is your ticket to success, in a very loose sense of the phrase, as it doesn't really do your homework for you and can't be used to pass classes in any direct and meaningful manner. But it is successful at holding your meals (and even if you're in a co-op that's still one per week, except at Dascomb or the Coffee Cart), your flex dollars, your Obie dollars, your library record, and acting as a key card to get you into the dorms. While the college swears that someday the IDs will also be usable for laundry and photocopying, they've been whistling that tune for four years and nothing has come of it (as of 2007) except for in the Science Library, where the photocopiers do indeed take OCID. Also, rumor has it that two dorms will have electronic payment systems for laundry installed by fall; it's unclear whether the system will be linked with students' OCID. This system has taken so long to roll out because of the high cost(, apparently) associated with wiring the laundry rooms for this ability.

Your OCID also qualifies you for cheap ticket prices to nearly every on-campus event (student tickets tend to be somewhere between free and $15, with the mode probably falling at $5).

You can use your OCID to ride the LCT for free (which is a good way to get to the airport, or even into Cleveland). No you can't, not as of 5 Aug 2005. In brief, now it costs $4 each way and is still a pretty ok way to get into Cleveland, and the best way to get to the airport. See the article at LCT for more.

You can use your OCID in a MacGyveresque escape plan.

You can use your OCID to get a discount at the Pizza Hut south of campus, or a free cookie at Miller's.

[edit] To Replace

If you lose your ID card, or it starts to work only sporadically, you can go the Stevenson building to get it replaced or fixed. A new one usually costs $10, and getting an existing one fixed is free. The ID Card office is tucked away in the downstairs part of the building, middle hallway.

If it's not during campus business hours (~9am - 4pm) and that office is closed, Security can take care of you temporarily. If you've lost your ID you generally want to fix things sooner than later, since once you've got your new one, the old one is de-activated and nobody can use it for good or for evil.

You're supposed to get your card replaced if it starts to crack, since a cracked card can damage the swipey machines that get you into dining halls and out of the Decafe. If the person working the register is in the mood, they'll yell at you about not getting it replaced yet, especially if said person is grumpy and has seen you with your busted-ass card often.

[edit] Photographs

Up to 2001, ID pictures were taken on move-in day, which meant that everybody looked like hell since they had just stood in line in the Root Room for an hour and that was after carrying all of their stuff into their room, meeting some stranger who had keys to their room and claimed to be their "room-mate" etc...

Since 2002, students have been allowed to mail in photographs to be used on their IDs, which means that everyone still looks ridiculous, because people send in their glamorous high school senior photoshoots, come to Oberlin, and promptly realize how stupid they looked all through high school.

[edit] Anomalies

There have been a few reported instances of ID's working long after they were supposed to be shut off. This usually happens to people who graduated mid year and had another extenuating circumstances (college employment being one). In this case the individual's card continues to work to this day.

Another student forgot that he had already sent in his picture and in (perhaps stoned) moment didn't realize he had already been given his OCID when he moved in so he want to the Root room and got a second ID. By some fluke both ID's worked and were loaded with meals. He continually lost both IDs and continually found them until one was cracked in half in a drunken party.

[edit] Abuse

When prospies come to visit, they get a ID with meals and swiping capabilities. One can convince a prospie to hand over the ID after their stay, and use it for meals or give it to one's friends who are squatting in co-ops/dorms but aren't going to school and prefer not to climb in through the piano window every time.