I am getting really sick of OSU’s “efforts” to assist transfer students in integrating themselves into the programs here. I can only speak for the College of Business, but as part of the university, it should have consistent policies throughout. I transferred here with 5 different transcripts- West Linn High School (AP credits), Clackamas Community College (Spanish credits), Portland Community College, University of Southern California, and Portland State University.
First of all, completely unrelated to OSU, there needs to be a better system of official student transcripts. There needs to be a centralized database or some sort of electronic exchange process that saves ever student from having to spend 12 bucks each time to get some secretary to mail a piece of paper printed from her computer to another secretary who has to open it and enter it manually into her computer (yes, I am assuming they are both women, piss off). Anyone see the unnecessary steps in the middle? I DO.
Anyway, back to the issue at hand. After spending a fortune and hours of my time getting all of my grades into OSU’s grubby little paws, I then had to spend another 3 or 4 hours of my time during the first term here petitioning to get my classes from other schools to count for classes here. All of this I had to figure out on my own as the women who work in the College of Business advising office here are either completely unqualified (i.e. have an IQ below 60) or are super bitchy. Several possess both qualities, making it very exhausting to deal with them for hours on end.
I then was advised to take classes that weren't required for my concentration, another waste of time and money. All of this I could attribute to a broken system and not to the ineptitude of the advisors, until this week. As business majors, we are required to take a senior capstone course and a "writing-intensive course" (which is a joke on its own) in order to fulfill the graduation requirements. Earlier this term I was told by my advisor that because I have an extremely small amount of wiggle room in my schedule in order to complete all of my classes at the end of next term and study abroad next fall, that I should take BA 469 which satisfies both the senior capstone and WIC requirements in one 4 credit class. She also said that this spring is the last time they are ever going to offer the class, so it was perfect timing. From now on, business students will have to take BA 353 (WIC - 4 credits) and BA 466 (senior capstone - 4 credits) in order to graduate. I was initially annoyed that they had failed to mention this the other 100 times I had been in there trying to find a way to finish on time without having to take 18 credits a term of upper-division classes which would likely push me to the brink of insanity, but my annoyance turned into relief that I could satisfy that requirement with 4 credits instead of 8. I then asked her the direct question "so I won't have any problems graduating with BA 469 on my transcript instead of the other two?" Her answer: "of course not".
Here's where they win the award. I went into the advising office on Thursday last week to a different advisor to see if they would allow me to walk in the wrong graduation ceremony instead of having to come back June 2011 after being away from OSU for an entire year (seems logical, right?). After getting shot down, I decided to triple-check my plan to take BA 469 since I was registering for spring classes 3 days later. Her answer just about cost her her own life. I was told that only people who entered OSU the term before I did were allowed to use BA 469 because they were on the "old school requirements". WHAM. After silently composing myself for a few seconds, I explained to her what I had been told only weeks before by another equally "qualified" advisor and even showed her the paper in my file that blatantly states "Take BA 469 instead of 353 and 466 - sufficient for graduation". Doesn't get much clearer than that. After talking in circles around the issue in the most infuriating and noncommittal way, she said that she would "check around" and get back to me. I told her that my registration time was Sunday morning and that I was going to register for BA 469 either way.
I received her email response Friday afternoon (pleasantly surprised with her timeliness) that basically said I could try to petition for an exception with the attached petition form. Sure thing, boss. Why not? The only person who didn't make a mistake is me, so of course the correction of that mistake should be my responsibility. Not to mention the fact that it was ME whose responsibility it was to triple-check your office's work to discover the problem in the first place. Sure, I'll take the time to correct it. So in my best attempt to hide my true feelings about the situation, I filled out the form and will turn it in on Monday. I'd like to say "here's hoping" but I have discovered that hoping is much too passive a stance to take with the College of Business. A better statement would be "here's hoping they are smart enough to make the exception to correct a mistake they made and I caught and corrected because failure to do so would not be in their best interests..." I'll leave it at that.
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