During the past couple weeks I’ve been winding my way through the process of being admitted to and registering for college. I’ve come to the assumption that they have made it a multitude more complicated than it needs to so as to employ as many people in the process as possible (all union jobs, you see).
The Admissions process is relatively painless. You give them your information and, providing that you’ve been honest and don’t have any disqualifications, they admit you. I did mine online. It cost $10.
However, instead of following up my online registration, where an email address was required, with an online admissions email, they took five days to send me an admissions letter. It wouldn’t have mattered so much, except that before I could get further along in the process I needed my Student ID#, which was in the admissions letter.
The next step was to get my current basic skillset assessed. This was also relatively painless. I went to the college, walked into the “Welcome Center” and took the assessment test. It cost $20.
I later found out that if had wanted to, I could have taken a free course on how to take the test. I say “later” because I sat at a computer which was along the wall of windows looking in on the folks taking the free course that day. I people watched while I was taking the test and I was glad I wasn’t in there. It seemed to me as though they were simply putting off the inevitable.
On a side note, I found out after i was done that part of my testing score was how long I took to complete the test. I guess I would have learned something in that room. Though the adviser did mention that I spent less time than average taking the test.
Once I had the test complete I was instructed to wait at a set of tables to speak with a “Welcome Center Adviser”. I could see into all of their offices, and all four of the ladies were in a single office watching or reading something very funny on the desktop computer. Once they had finished, one of them made her way out, pulled my paperwork off of the printer and kindly motioned me to come inside her office. I scored 100% in both the Reading and Writing portions of the test, but only 72% on the Mathematics. So an Algebra refresher course is in my future.
Once we had gone over my scores, there was talk of money. I told them I’d only be able to attend part time, which pretty much leaves me to pay for them myself and hopefully get reimbursed by my employer.
After the money talk, I was asked if I had a chosen program of study. I told her that I wished to study Geography. This caused a small problem, because there isn’t a set “Program” for Geography and she didn’t know if it was an Associate of Arts program or an Associate of Science program. The very nice, but now wholly confused lady asked her fellow advisers, and none of them knew either. To add insult to injury, the Geography instructor was taking the 2009-2010 school year off to get his Ph.D, so he couldn’t be immediately asked either.
Apparently feeling as though she could help me no further, she let me leave with instructions to contact the Geography instructor’s boss, the head of the Social Sciences Department, an Ethnic Studies professor, who got his degrees from, you guessed it, the Evergreen State College.
And that is where I’ll leave this fiasco for today. It only gets funnier (or the opposite of funnier, if you’re me) tomorrow.
Ah the lovely smell of bureaucracy, held together by red tape and ignorance. I fear I am all too familiar with it.
Edu-bureaucrats are a delight. And that is one of the big reasons that I haven’t set foot in an educational facility since graduating from UW.
…and with advisers like these, the end product is supposed to be how well trained? Bueller?
Seriously, Phil, you can now take damn near an entire degree online. You need to look into what coursework is available online. As I’ve heard, WaZu has the best online selections in the sciences.
The nurse-dau tells me that their new campus at Salmon Creek (just north of Vancouver) was set up to serve a large part of the student body via the internet.
Geography is a “Social Science” ???
Overseen by a “Ethnic Studies prof” ???
WTF?
….. Mr. C.
Well, yeah, Mr. C. — it’s all designed to train folks to gerrymander Congressional districts, don’t ‘cha know.
Actually, it makes sense, Mr Completely.
Geography has two components:
How Geology effects landforms and boundaries.
How ethnology, history, and landforms effect boundaries.
The first is a science, and the second is properly in the Arts.
Like I tell my students, experiencing the bureaucracy is cathartic and part of the education you pay for. By the way, there’s something called financial aid that you can apply for, even if you are enrolled part-time.