Q: Weird Internet behavior

Hello all,

Hopefully I can type this fast before the internet gives out again.

Here is my problem:  On my Mac, my wireless internet will go out periodically. It does not just boot me off of the network, it is entirely incapable of detecting any networks (when there should be 4 or 5 that it usually detects and that other devices are able to see).  If I restart my computer the internet is *sometimes* able to come back, sometimes not.  The same goes for turning the computer entirely off and then back on again.  The time range that I am able to use the internet has varied from as little as 2 minutes to as great as 3 hours, but it always eventually disconnects (as well as becomes incapacitated from even detecting the networks).  I am using a shared college-wide internet connection in an on-campus apartment, so I have no authority or control over the router.  If it was a router problem I would merely begrudgingly wait for those to be resolved by the tech guys on campus and go a couple days without the internet, but I have reasons to believe it is not.  Those reasons are the following:

- Other devices are able to detect the network and connect to it. 

- The computer exhibits the same problem with different wireless connections that it had previously recognized off campus (tested at a friends house).

- The menus exhibit sporadic behavior after the disconnection.  For example, the wireless icon at the top right will tell me that the wireless is on, but the 'Systems Preference' menu will tell me that it is off, and sometimes vice versa.  When I press "turn Wi-fi on" whenever the Wi-Fi is exhibited as being "off" by the System Preferences menu, the button is entirely ineffective and does nothing.  The same goes for the "Turn Wi-Fi On" option in the icon's expansion menu.  However, even when both the icon and the preferences menu agree that the wireless is "on" (which is probably just a coincidence when that happens), whenever I enter either "Assistant" or "Diagnostics", a menu pops up informing me that my wireless is, as a matter of fact, off!

As I was typing this, I had to save my response in a notepad because the wireless gave out again and have now had to login twice.  Does anybody know what's going on?  Is there anything else I should try to illucidate this problem? 

Thanks in advance.