I hate bureaucracy…
So, I promised an update last night, so here I am, computer lab…I tried to add a senior seminar class, but it was overfull (like every other class I’ve tried to take it seems) so I decided to write my update now…
Ah, yes, add/drop. But let me start back at the beginning…
So, right before the school goes on winter break, I go there, to make sure everything was okay. Call it a hunch, but I felt like things weren’t exactly right. I have this fear the school will lose paperwork, you see, due to them not liking to give receipts for things, even if they’re important things, like a whole sheet of w-2’s….but I digress. Checked with the departments. All was well…except with financial aid. And…guess what? If you guessed lost a piece of paperwork I gave them, then you win 20 awesome Momo points!
Luckily, I knew where I had a copy of just such paperwork! Huzzah! I asked if it would be alright if I brought it in right after New Year’s, since it was Friday afternoon, and I didn’t have enough time to go and come back before they closed, and I was going to visit my family for two weeks and we don’t have a fax machine or anything down there. They said it was fine, and that they were only going to be open for a day or two in that time period anyways.
So, I go. I visit my mom. I make merry, and have a jolly Christmas, and a happy New Year. 🙂
Come back up to my apartment. School is open Monday. Walk down there. Give them the paper. Ask them if there is anything else I need. ANYTHING. They go to pull my file…
Ends up they put it where they put the “not going to school anymore” files. Even though I had checked with them two weeks ago, and told them I was coming back. Every other department knew I was coming back. Why didn’t financial aid? I don’t know!
So, they pulled the file, and after a week, they finally put things in for review. I get it back…and I’m missing a lot of aid. A LOT. Like…few thousand dollars worth? I’ll put it this way. I usually get a refund of at least $1000 or so, which I then use to cut down on hours when I’m working so I can concentrate on school (or to just outright live, when I don’t have a job like at current…) and they were almost $3000 short of what I needed, just for tuition. No work study, even, which makes no sense. Seriously, how do you leave out work study? I had an EFC of $0. I should have had a lot more aid, and work study. I’m going to appeal, once I finish adding classes, but appeals take time, and I needed the money NOW to be able to get in…
Thankfully, I have a “family member” (not sure how or if he wants to be identified, so I’m leaving it like that unless he asks otherwise) who was able to help me, even though he had almost no notice.
But of course, that would be too easy. After I get my award letter signed, I have to go to a website and essentially tell them yes I agree to pay back all the money that you loan you’re giving to me.
School started on a Tuesday, due to having Monday, MLK day, off. Except there was snow, so much snow in fact that they called a snow day. There goes my first day of adding classes…
Went to financial aid Wednesday first thing. “Are my loans in?” “No, but we see in the computer that we got it yesterday and so it should be fine tomorrow”
Went Thursday, first thing. “Oh, we got this other thing yesterday. It’ll be okay tomorrow…”
Friday? Second snow day. First time since I’ve started school that they’ve had two snow days in a week. Of course, on the day I was slated to pay my bill.
Luckily for me, they extended the deadline for both paying and add/drop to Friday, so I was able to go in this morning and give them the money they needed and hand in my add/drop sheet thus far.
BUT. Now for my class story…
Backstory: Sometime during my leave of absence, my school e-mail got shut off. Why? I don’t know, but they refused to turn it on again until I had classes. even though I pointed out that my last leave of absence allowed me to keep my e-mail. They didn’t care, they didn’t want to hear from me until I registered for classes. The e-mail is more than just an e-mail….it’s how you normally register for classes, how you normally pay your bill, how you get unofficial transcripts….so on and so forth. To register for classes you need to have your bill paid. And to have your bill paid, you need your e-mail! need the school to process the fact that they have the money they want, they just don’t realize it yet. This will become important soon.
So…Wednesday. I added 2 classes. Or at least, added one, and tentatively added another. You see, there’s this class needed for all psych students. It’s usually a somewhat popular class, and you need these prerequisites filled before you take the class, because once you enter it you can officially enter the psych major (well, you can do that beforehand too, but this one is the big official class…). So, a lot of teachers are kinda strict about it. Strict enough…to require an unofficial transcript to take the class. Which means I need my e-mail. Which means I need to register for classes. Which means I REALLY needed the school to handle my loans, especially because she wants it by today and it can take up to 24-48 hours after you register for classes for the e-mail to start working. I have this class at 4 today. I’m going to throw myself on the mercy of the registrar and hope they somehow have it in their cold hearts to somehow have a way to access my transcript (up until they outsourced it to some outside company, that was where you went to have transcripts sent off….) and if not, throw myself on the mercy of the professor and ask that she let me take care of it on Wednesday. She didn’t seem to like me very much though….I got rejected from two or so classes that day, which I found strange. Usually professors will allow however many students there are seats, whereas the professor were caring about the official student limits instead. The rumor going around is that the professors were told if they add students over the official limit then they’d make the new number the official number for the next semester, and they they’re all afraid of 100 student classes, or whatever. Something like that. I don’t know. I just know it’s hard across almost all the majors to add a class, period, nevermind the important required ones. It’s almost like there isn’t enough class to go around, or something…
Thursday was alright. Added two classes, got rejected from…gosh, I don’t even know how many. 2 or 3, I think? I kinda lost track. I got into one of the classes I wanted, with one of my two favorite professors, which was great. He over packed his room, which I appreciate. If you go by the numbers on the first day, for most classes, you’re not going to have a full class, because a lot of people show up just to make sure the professor won’t drop them then drop it as soon as they get into the classes they want. The second or third day is better, but most professors don’t want to add those days…alas….there was a senior seminar I wanted to take with my absolute favoritest professor…but it was full. He looked sad to have to turn me down. He talked with boyfriend on it on the way to class (I caught him right outside his office, and boyfriend had just come out of class and was heading to that professors class, so he came with me) and he told boyfriend that he was sad that he couldn’t add me. Sad sad. I was able to get into a class with similar content, however, so it wasn’t a complete wash. It just doesn’t count for my seminar…
So now I’m going to hope against all hope that the last professor who has a seminar will let me add it on Wednesday (Jeez, 8 Am with the most boring professor ever about a topic that he and I disagree vehemently upon….see why I waited until last for it?) and somehow get an unofficial transcript by 4, unless the professor wants to be super nice and let me wait until Wednesday, which I doubt…)…and then my semester will be fine. Anthropology for my last social science requirement, “kiddie psych” for a psych elective, “racism class” to fill credits, senior seminar, and big important psychology research class. I think my summer classes will seriously end up entailing taking credits for credit’s sake, because I’m pretty sure it’s just a matter of credits. I’ll find out soon, because once my e-mail works I’m going to turn in my intent to graduate form, which triggers a course audit which they’ll then e-mail me what I need for really reallies to finish. I’m walking in May, barring a catastrophe. I hope this all works out well. If I’m a credit short, I’m gonna be pissed. I’m missing a big festival in summer for final exams week for the summer semester, so it better all work out right >_<
I’m sure it will. I just need to remember to do my homework and breathe…
Now that I’ve got THAT out of the way, I can use my two hour break between classes to work on grad school and apps and such. It never ends, I swear…
At least I’m officially a student for this semester? Up until this morning I had my doubts that it was all going to work out, which is why I refrained from posting about it.
If I don’t get those classes, I’ll figure out how to add others. Those are just the ones I need to graduate, so I need to explore all options to be able to give up and try another class..
Well, wish me luck guys! I have a feeling I’m going to need it. God, my tummy is doing backflips, this is unpleasant. All I want is the classes I need, is that really so hard?
Well, talk to all you guys later. Ta!
Abnormally Psychotic 