Hard luck, eh. January 15, 2007
Like the illustrious Vish, I too am suffering at the hands of the dreaded academic bureaucracy. Let me rant.
Last Monday, Ethan and I dropped Amy at daycare and went to the university registry to pay for my two summer school classes, which began today. I approached the fees counter with student ID and credit card at the ready, expecting (ha!) to simply show my ID and pay. First the woman at the counter rolled her eyes at my college ID, because woo, the college is now officially part of the university and OH DEAR GOD she had to actually look up my new university-supplied ID number. Poor dear.
Then it turned out that I was apparently not enrolled in the summer school classes, which I had called the free 0800 number to apply for back in early December. I was sent, with Ethan, to the enrolment counter, where I handed over my ID to further and exaggerated eyerolling. I’m pretty sure I saw one actually roll out of her eye socket, hit the ceiling, and drop back in. It turned out they had no record of my summer school enrolment, and I — and Ethan — was sent to the college to find out why.
Would you believe the college knew nothing? It’s true. I was sent BACK to the university. With Ethan. Who really wanted to be at the library so he could play on the computer.
The same lady behind the counter spent a lot of time actually seeming to do stuff to figure out why I wasn’t enrolled. She even tried to enrol me again, but the computer would only let me enrol in 2006 classes. It was like the sketches in Little Britain: “Computer says noooo.” She finally asked a supervisor, who asked someone in the call centre. It turned out that a) I needed college approval for the courses before I could pay the fees, so I was only pre-enrolled, and b) pre-enrolment doesn’t show up on the registry computers, so as far as one half of the building knew I didn’t exist. I was finally given the name of a woman based at the college who is apparently in charge of approving courses, called her, and got approved two days later. Still, it has taken until today, exactly one week later, before I was finally able to hand over my credit card and pay my fees.
And that is a sort of segue into the second part of Why The University-College Merger Is A Big Fat Mess. When I went into StudentNet to pay my fees, I saw my formal offer of enrolment for the summer courses, which I had to accept before being officially entered in the course (I know, I know). I accepted said offer, then checked my enrolment details. There they all were: 2006 Certificate in Learning Support (Enrolled); 2007 Certificate in Learning Support (Enrolled)…and, uh, WTF? Last week there was another line in there: 2007 Bachelor of Teaching and Learning (Primary) (Pending).
That line was missing.
I immediately called the university with some choice words that I bit back for the sake of efficiency and explained the situation as I knew it. The friendly phone drone said that yes, I was enrolled in the Certificate. Uh huh. But what about the Bachelor’s? Uh, hmm, well, it’s not on the list, is it? Are you sure you enrolled?
GAH.
So at the moment my enrolment for the three-year bachelor’s programme, which begins in ONE MONTH, has vanished into thin freaking air. I’m waiting for a call, which will come tomorrow afternoon, that says, oh, uh, well, we don’t know what happened but I swear we’ll fix it, it was the college’s fault because the university is blameless, and by the way your schedule is now completely different, sorry about that.
(Incidentally, my class this week is great. There are three students in the class. Discussions are mercifully brief but it’s impossible to fall asleep without being noticed.)
