Not long before I left work today, TOTO came to me with a copy of our local paper’s Letters to the Editor and pointed out one written by someone who is “done” with our university. The letter writer ended it by saying she would do her master’s degree at our rival university, which is probably one of the reasons TOTO enjoyed it so much, seeing as she’s a graduate from that same university.
And that’s all well and good. TOTO is more than entitled to rub it in our faces that her football team is better than ours and all sorts of other things. But quite frankly, the things that the letter writer complained about kind of pissed me off. And the more I thought about it, the more angry I became.
Make no mistake about it; I wholeheartedly believe that things could be much better where I went to school and now work. But I hardly think the reasons listed were reasons to declare yourself “done” with your alma mater. For starters, she complained about paying an exorbitant amount for parking, while not being able to find a spot to park. This is such a bullshit complaint. There is plenty of parking on campus. What the real complaint is “I don’t want to have to walk far.” Usually said while whining. I have a friend (Hi Mon, if you’re reading!) who went to MSU and every morning for a while, we’d drop each other emails and complain about how long it was taking for spring to arrive. Mon had to walk a hell of a long way from her car to her building and frequently complained of frozen things, but never about the walking itself. Because that is a fact of life at universities and people need to get over the whole “woe is me” aspect of actually using their feet to transport themselves from one location to another.
The letter writer complained of her husband’s poor advising. I sympathize. As a non-traditional student myself, I also had a terrible adviser. Fortunately, I knew how to read a degree audit and I talked to one of my professors who made sure I was on the right track. In other words, *gasp* I took responsibility for my own education. I understand there are bad advisers. One of my colleagues who wants to attend classes right now just experienced a frustrating time finding the answers he needed. It often takes more than one phone call to more than one person. This is a legitimate issue, but from what I’ve heard from others at different universities, this is not a problem exclusive to our university. TOTO’s experience at our rival university was a good one. I’m glad for that. But that doesn’t mean other problems don’t exist. I was cautioned to hold off on looking into a particular program offered at that rival university because they’ve lost some of their better faculty members in the department. Hopefully, the letter writer’s experience will be similar to TOTO’s, but guess what? Nothing is guaranteed.
I think the thing that ticked me off the most was the biggest reason our letter writer listed for being “done” with our university: ticket limits on commencement. A couple of different issues led to these ticket limits. Fall commencement was canceled due to inclement weather and all those students were invited back to participate in the spring ceremony. But since our campus arena is undergoing renovation, individual colleges had to have their commencements in other locations. Hence the ticket limits. The letter writer was upset that there weren’t enough tickets for four parents and a spouse to attend.
We had a student working for us who is from Poland. She found out very late that both her grandfather and her father would be able to come to the U.S. to attend her graduation and this was going to result in a problem with the ticket limit. She talked to us for ideas and TOTO put her in touch with someone who might have been able to help. We told her to talk to her adviser to see if perhaps he was aware of anyone who wasn’t using a ticket. TOTO suggested asking other students in her classes. We don’t know for certain if she was able to get them all in, because when we saw her last, she only said that graduation was “perfect.” But through it all, even while she was trying to find that extra ticket, she never once complained.
We should all be so gracious.
Wow, yeah. I can sympathize with anyone about bad advising. Well, I won’t even say bad advising, as it is partially my fault for having an unbelievably complicated academic record. I’ve attended… How many is it now? Counting UT, 5 universities? After all of that, you get pretty good at not giving up on transfer credits and making sure that everything is on track with your degree. It got to the point where I didn’t even consult advisers my last couple of years of classes. I knew what I needed to do and contacted the necessary people if I wasn’t sure.
Oh, and as a side note, I did finally get registered and am attending classes. Now I just need to contact a few more people to find out what courses I should take next semester. This is complicated.
This is the kind of thing that drove me crazy at Kent State…ungrateful students who felt entitled to park right outside whatever building they needed to be in. I used to work in Parking Services there, remember? Students just can’t see the big picture, there’s no way everybody can park right where they need to be all the time, it’s just impossible and unrealistic. And when I worked at Ohio State, I paid $600/YEAR for parking. Yep, that wasn’t a typo…SIX FREAKIN’ HUNDRED DOLLARS A YEAR, and then had to hike a solid 15 minutes at a fast pace from my parking spot to my building, even when I was pregnant.
And the advising thing? It’s universal, I’m sure. I went to my adviser one time at KSU during my undergrad, and she misadvised me and enrolled me in a class I should’t be in. I even questioned her at the time (because I could actually read the catalog), but she insisted that I needed that class. Of course, I found out soon after that she was mistaken after meeting with my faculty adviser in the Anthropology dept. Like you said, sometimes you just have to take responsibility for your education yourself…. At any rate, I feel your pain!