Saturday, June 7, 2008

Worked Out

Just a little update to my last blog of frustration about school. After going in to talk to advisors Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (being frustrated, then calm, then frustrated to tears) we finally got things worked out. The advisor I talked to Tuesday and Wednesday was very helpful and actually went in to talk to the Visual Art and Design (VAD) department head for me since I was always at work. Then on Thursday he called me up and said after talking to the department head that everything was going to work out, the teacher would let me in to the earlier class and all I had to do was show up to the end of the class and talk to the teacher. So that's what I did.
I went to the school right after we let the kids go and got there for the last 15 minutes or so of the class. After the lecture ended I talked to the teacher and she put my name on the roll, gave me the syllabus and told me to see about registering over the weekend. I then asked her if her email address was on the syllabus and she said "No. I guess I should think about adding that some time. Here, let me look it up for you, I'll give you my address through the school." She then started typing on the computer.... I waited.... She typed some more.... I still waited.... Finally she gave in and gave me her person email address. I couldn't believe it, this is the teacher that is teaching a digital media essentials class and she doesn't even know her own email address. Wow! No wonder I had problems getting into the class! But I'm in now and that's all that matters.
Oh yeah and around 3:45 that same afternoon, the VAD department head gave me a call to see if I had gotten things straightened out. How nice of him to call me two days later. Sheesh!

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Before It All

Summer semester starts Wednesday. If you had asked me a week ago I would have told you I was way excited for the term to start. Ask me now and I'll tell you how frustrating things have gotten with SLCC. I registered within days of the opening day, it may have even been the day registration opened for me, and I have been ready for this for the past month. Now, in the final days I am so mad at SLCC it's not even funny.
I got online earlier today to check I had written down the right times in all three places that I put my schedule down and to get the class room numbers written down. As I did this I realized that my photography and digital media essentials classes were no longer at the times I had originally signed up for. Not only were they not the right time but not even the right day! They switched from Tuesday and Thursday to Monday and Wednesday, not that it's really that big of a deal but the real kicker is that they are now both at the very same exact time as well. How the heck do they expect me to be in two places at once?!
There is another digital media essentials class I could potentially sign up for because it says there is still one spot left but there is no check box by the class. I don't get it. And if I can't sign up for that class I don't know what to do, I'll have to drop one of the two and find a different class that is offered at this start point seeing as how the semester actually started May 12th. The problem with that is most of the classes will be full by now since it's so close to the start of the term.
This begs me to ask, WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED?! Who decided to switch people's schedules and not tell the students that signed up for them? Why are all the professors listed for this one class not listed in the employee directory making it near impossible to contact them? I don't think I would be quite as frustrated if I had just been told that my classes were going to change. When my German class was changed my professor called me personally and left a voice mail informing of the time change, giving me her phone number and email address if there was any problem and also telling me which text book to get and which chapters we would be using throughout the semester. It was a long message, but I'm sure she called all the students enrolled in the class and told them of the change. Now granted that was a while ago and there probably weren't as many people but how hard would it be to get all of our email addresses and send out a mass email saying, "By the way your class has been changed from TR 2-4:30pm to MW 5-10pm. If that is a problem please contact ______. Sorry for any inconvenience." Or, "By the way your class has been changed from TR 5-9pm to MW 5-10:15pm. If that is a problem please contact _______. Sorry for any inconvenience." Would that really be so hard? Apparently, it is. And how both classes were extended so long I don't know. I hope it's just a glitch in the computer and everything will be fixed in the morning.

Will this nightmare never end?