[Mikey]

I put this on my highly recommended blog, but I'll share with all here because I'm still peeved and want to vent everywhere at this point:


Despite what my online Web Express console has told me for the past TWO YEARS, I need five courses to graduate from college, and not the three I had previously thought. No big deal, I can do 15 hours in a semester – especially if it means I have possession of a degree at the end of said semester. So, I need the following:

MGT 4476 - Strategic Management

MKT 4462 – Consumer Behavior

One “upper level business course”

Two “Marketing Electives” from a list of eight courses:

· Internet Marketing
· Personal Selling
· Retailing
· Transportation
· Integrated Marketing Communications
· Sales Management
· Internet Marketing II
· Selected Marketing Topic (one of those “write a big ass paper and be done” classes)

So that’s what I need. Simple enough, right? Well, fall semester classes were released today… and I am beyond pissed. Get this shit…

The two specific classes I need? No problem. Consumer Behavior’s first quarter, Strategic’s second quarter – both with professors I really like. Fantastic. The “upper level business course?” Pairs up perfectly with my first quarter for a 5:30/8:00 Tuesday-Thursday combo. Business in Society, and it’s taught by the crazy Morgan Freeman lookalike dude that I like so much. Three down, two to go.

And that’s when all hell breaks loose.

There are EIGHT different classes I have to choose from. I need two of them. Well, only ONE OF THEM is offered via traditional in-class lecture; that’s Retailing. Taught by yet another guy I like. However, it coincides exactly with my Strategic class, and try as I might, I can’t be two places at once. So scratch that one. That leaves online classes. Which is fine because I’d planned on needing one this final semester anyway.

But it’s hard to take classes online WHEN THEY’RE NOT OFFERED! Eight classes to choose from… and yet again, ONE OF THEM is offered online. One class. One goddamn class. The same Retailing course offered in-class. Eight courses – one to pick from. I need two. How does THAT work?

But wait… it gets better. Working on an assumption that I now can’t graduate in December and will have to take one class in the spring, I check the future schedule of classes. And Jiminy Fucking Cricket… THEY’RE NOT OFFERED IN THE SPRING EITHER!! Not in-class. Not online. So… how is one supposed to graduate when the alleged classes he/she needs – the same classes that weren’t denoted as such within the online console – AREN’T EVEN ON THE DAMN OFFERING??

The one alternative? I can drive 60 minutes to Troy and take the class old school style, midday, 1 hour MWF, or 90 minutes Tuesday-Thursday, every week for four months, because the main campus works on semesters, whereas Montgomery is still on quarters. So sure, I can just take off work in the middle of the day twice a week for 16 weeks, right?

The first reaction I had to this revelation was to sue the school. A B.A. in Marketing is one of the offered degrees at the Montgomery campus, and it’s clear that a student is not allowed the opportunity to reasonably complete the required courseload, given that the Montgomery campus is designed for “non-traditional” students who work during the day.

The delayed, more reasonable, reaction was to go to Dr. Dukes, my Consumer Behavior professor-to-be and head of the Marketing department in Montgomery, and see what he can do for me. I’m hoping I can go thru him and nail down one of those “write a big ass paper and be done with it” deals and get my credits and be done.

I should’ve known that there’d be one more unnecessary college red tape hassle before I got out. This kind of shit is precisely why I have no interest in staying at the school thing and banging out my Masters. [/rant]

[Jack Quinn]

college is frustrating as hell Mikey. I hope you can go to a prof and get the big ass paper option. I ran into the same problem a lot when I was going to school. I could only take classes in the evening, which limited my choices from like 20 classes to about 6. It was crazy, and I don't think any of it was offered online either.

Thankfully we were allowed so many Independent Study classes which would fill in the gaps IF you could find a prof willing to work with you. I had two of them, one was on the Guilded Age and the other was a great WWI class. If I would have had to wait for something like that to come around, I would probably still be going to school.

[Fire-Babe]

Yeah, see if you can go the independent study route.

I tend to not like to do them with students who are replacing specific classes, as it just never seems to work as well. But sometimes it's the only option, and I've done them in that context.

[Deleted]

Typically when the colleges see how close you are to finishing, they will be more open to petitioning to take either a similarly beneficial course (like say an economics, statistics, or math course), or the aforementioned independent study route.

Good luck, and keep us posted!

[Mikey]

I sent an e-mail to Dr. D this morning. I've had him twice and we have a good relationship. Explained my problem with a few less four letter words and asked him what he could do for me.

Despite all this crap, I'm still optimistic.

[Deleted]

As you should be. Despite what people tend to think, colleges are not actively trying to screw you over and make you put the rest of your life on hold waiting on their bullshit like this. They want a good reputation as much as any other big business does.

[Fire-Babe]

Yep. And 'graduation rate' is a big deal, so if they can get you to finish, that looks good for them, as well as you.

[punk/core]

Most of the classes I need to take are only offered once per year. I've had to mess with my schedule accordingly plenty of times.

[BTR]

Jun 17, 2009 0:25:30 GMT -5 Jack Quinn said:

I had two of them, one was on the Guilded Age

I hope the first thing you learned in that independent study was how to spell the name of the age correctly.

[Mikey]

Jun 17, 2009 12:20:34 GMT -5 punk/core said:

Most of the classes I need to take are only offered once per year.

Ya see, I almost expected that. But I need two of the eight, and only ONE of the group is offered at all for the ENTIRE year. That was my problem with the situation.

Talked to Dr. D this morning - he told me who I needed to get with and that he could work with me to come up with a solution. So it sounds like I can get this sorted out.

[Batman]

Jun 17, 2009 12:43:34 GMT -5 BTR said:

Jun 17, 2009 0:25:30 GMT -5 Jack Quinn said:

I had two of them, one was on the Guilded Age

I hope the first thing you learned in that independent study was how to spell the name of the age correctly.

What? It was the age of guilds. Powerful, powerful guilds.

[punk/core]

Jun 17, 2009 12:49:08 GMT -5 Mikey said:

Jun 17, 2009 12:20:34 GMT -5 punk/core said:

Most of the classes I need to take are only offered once per year.

Ya see, I almost expected that. But I need two of the eight, and only ONE of the group is offered at all for the ENTIRE year. That was my problem with the situation.

Talked to Dr. D this morning - he told me who I needed to get with and that he could work with me to come up with a solution. So it sounds like I can get this sorted out.

Hmm, I misread it then. Whenever that's happened here, you can usually talk to the counselor and take an alternate class that will count just the same. I assume that's what you've done.

[Lucky]

Yeah, sounds like everyone else had the advice I have and you're already on the way. But I encountered the same problem in my senior year and I knew another guy who did. For my part I couldn't register in the first week because my finances were screwed up, and by the time they were fixed the class I needed was full. The professor was actually basically my friend at that point with my cell number and he agreed to let me join the class anyway and wait to see if someone dropped it. Sure enough, a few weeks in someone dropped the course and I was in. And we had already discussed me just doing the final project for the course as an independent study if I couldn't get in.

My buddy did the same deal. Went to a professor he had taken a lot of classes with and laid out the situation calmly, professor told him to come talk history with him during lunch once a week and write a paper. Boom, independent study. Another friend wanted desperately to graduate with all his friends so had to work his ass off the final semester to fill his requirements, and again... once professors knew his reasons they were happy to help.

Sounds like you're already on your way there but while the red tape crap in colleges can drive you insane almost every reasonable person I've known has dealt with one of these sort of situations and was able to easily solve it by talking to their adviser, a professor they knew, or in worst case the department head. The systems suck but there's always a person or two willing to help.

[Jack Quinn]

Jun 17, 2009 13:09:36 GMT -5 Batman said:

Jun 17, 2009 12:43:34 GMT -5 BTR said:

I hope the first thing you learned in that independent study was how to spell the name of the age correctly.

What? It was the age of guilds. Powerful, powerful guilds.

you know, thats funny, the teacher even spelled it guilded age, though gilded makes FAR more sense, and appears to be the correct way.

[Demko]

See, this is the exact reason I never graduated college. I made the mistake of transferring, after my sophomore year, from a nice private Baptist school (Stetson University) to a public school (USF). I lost about a third of the credits I earned when I transferred, which I understood. That seems to happen a lot during public/private or private/public transfers. But then I went to my guidance counselor in the Computer Science department, who advised that I take a few pre-requisites, in order to get into the Engineering school, which would lead into the Computer Science program. However, every year, new requirements seemed to pop up. I thought, okay, bullshit... I should be grandfathered in, because I was already here before those requirements were in place. No go. They told me that I must now finish two more pre-requisites before the Engineering school would accept my application. Those were the only two courses I was able to take, even though I was supposed to be a full-time student, in order to keep my scholarships. Unfortunately, 6 credit hours does not a full-time student make, so in order to continue allowing for my scholarships to pay for my college degree, I was forced to take 3 more classes that didn't apply to ANYTHING with regards to my college major. I asked the Dean of Computer Science if I could klep into some of the courses, in order to get a jump on it, since these new requirements just popped up. It seems as though about 50% of the people of the Computer Science hopefuls were having the exact same problem that I was having, and if he let me do it, then he'd have to let all of the other 250 students do it as well, and that would be ridiculous, in his opinion.

College bureaucracy is some bullshit, ain't it?

[Deleted]

Jun 21, 2009 22:06:32 GMT -5 Demko said:

a nice private Baptist school (Stetson University)

I was unaware of the school's affiliation. This fully explains why the girl I met in grad school at UF who went to Stetson for undergrad had no fucking clue how hot she was.