The Shar-Pei Forums-Health Behavior Diet & Rescue Info and Discussion Group

I just need to vent a minute. This summer marks 5 years since I started school. I am so ready to finish this degree it is not even funny. I had a total of 3 classes to complete, or so I thought. I look tonight a my graduation requirements and the school has somehow added an additional course to complete my requirements. Not sure what is going on there, plus I can not even register for one class until I pass 3 additional test that are 90 dollars a piece. My major is Secondary Ed/ English. I would be required to student teach in the spring of 2013. I really can not afford to take 4 months off with out pay. I honestly have enough credits to graduate now, just I would not be able to teach in a public school system. I could only teach in a private school for one year, and then I could count this as my student teaching and be allowed to teach in public or private. Of course I have to go through an interview with 6 professors and write a 20 page report on why I can not afford to student teach, etc, and etc.

I just do not understand why receiving a degree has to be this hard. I take all the courses they require, and then they add more. It is almost like they are wanting me to stay 6 years. This is the second time they have added additional courses and switched my requirements.

I thought tonight maybe I should just switch my degree over to English, forget the secondary edu portion, but that means I have to complete an additional 5 courses. I looked at what those 5 courses would be and personally I don't think I can even take one of them seriously. I do not want to research the theories and practices of the analytical effects of erotica in 19-20th century literature. Sorry really have no interest in analyzing why Hemingway uses a sub-context in his novels, or why British authors use a indirect approach of erotica material to formulate an ideology in the 19th century.

So as you can see I am not a happy camper. I know I am just venting right now. This is one reason for the last year I have not been on the boards much. I have had to deal with much of the same research that is listed in my previous paragraph. I really just want to be able to read something for fun, have time to come onto the forums, and have just a weekend to watch movies or play with the pei's. Either way looks like I have one semester left of the senseless CRAP that I have been working on for the last 5 years. Oh and by the way I used to love school, but if I could give anyone advice GO TO COLLEGE WHEN YOU ARE YOUNG! Otherwise the older you get the more you start to think that the classes you are taking are just absurd. Some are interesting, but really how many times are you going to look for the sub-context of a hidden message and write a 10 page research paper?

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Peaches, Oscar, Pogo, and Luna
RIP Peaches 1-1998 - 3-2011

Just wanted you to know I admire you!!!!

That is a bunch of "hog wash" that they keep changing your requirements.

I was just wondering where you were and then i saw your thread! that seems ridiculous, why cant they just let you graduate and get on with your life

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Thanks! I agree about the "hog wash". I picture myself in a circus right now. I keep jumping through hoops.

Lulu it is all about the money. They just did a news report about the colleges adding courses in at the last minute to keep students in an additional year. I was supposed to graduate last fall. The first round of changes happened last summer. I went to the Dean of Education and even she had a hard time gettin my transcript fixed, because I was a transfer student. Once she got that fixed they went ahead and added an additional 8 for me to take to graduate. She had no way to override this. So I took those classes and now they added another round. At this rate I will graduate in 4 more years. I may have to take this to the Dean of UT. I only said in here they added 1 extra course, but it is really 4. I do believe I can get the overrides though to change 3 of them.

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Peaches, Oscar, Pogo, and Luna
RIP Peaches 1-1998 - 3-2011

I understand your frustration. If you are a public institution as I am, sometimes the additional requirements are imposed by the state agencies and not necessarily the institution. There are accreditation boards, state coordinating board and who knows what type of agency that change things all the time. And those courses that seem like a waste of time? They may teach you things that you may not even be aware of. All the research that you do, the assignments, the class discussions,etc. are geared toward teaching you analytical tools and methods of higher order thinking. Students who come back to school are pressured by work and family and are in a hurry to finish. Yet they often appreciate the education more and contribute more to the classroom than the newbies right out of high school. There is my venting ;-p

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Toni- Cosmo, Pei-le and Kaïa's mom

I agree, but after 5 years the classes are the same. I would get more out of them if it was not the same material in all of my classes. I have 3 classes right now that are covering all of the same material. No kidding on that. Last semester I had 4 classes that covered the same books from the previous 4 classes I had taken. All different professors. Yes, I do agree that I have been able to get more out of my education at this point in my life. The problem is the extra 20 courses that were taken out of my program after I already have taken them. It does not seem right. I have to meet with an advisor every semester so it is not like I get to pick and choose what I want to take. I understand that the state changes their requirements, but I think that they should give the students credit for previous classes they already took. They should not say those classes now do not count towards your degree program, and you must take another class in its place. Problem also is the course they replace it with is going over the same material. I feel I have done my time. I have 153 hours and now only 120 are counting towards my degree program. When I finish the fall semester I will have 132 hours that will be counted. That means I will have 165 hours total in. This is for a program that I should have been able to complete within 120 hours. I could already have completed part of my MA, but nope. I apparently had to complete an additional 50 hours towards my Bachelors degree.

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Peaches, Oscar, Pogo, and Luna
RIP Peaches 1-1998 - 3-2011

Oh man, they make the students pay out of state tuition if they do over a certain amount of hours. 120 is the number for a BA. They are trying to get students out as soon as possible in my university. Oh and education depts are notorious for exactly what you are saying: redundancy in coursework. Can you speak with your chair or your dean?

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Toni- Cosmo, Pei-le and Kaïa's mom

I actually did speak with the chair and dean in my department. I have another appointment next week with the Dean of Education. I do keep all of my paperwork just in case. In my state all thy do is cap students off at 175 hours for financial aid.

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Peaches, Oscar, Pogo, and Luna
RIP Peaches 1-1998 - 3-2011

Every institution is different - but at our school if they change the requirements when a student is mid-degree (and esp about to graduate) they grandfather in the change. Essentially, the students who started school prior the change are exempt. We're doing this now. We've changed our requirements based on the changing nature of the job market, but the curriculum remains unchanged for students who were already in our degree program. It is only new students who have to follow the new curriculum.

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oh lord...can i sympathize with you on being frustrated with schools...i have my own tale of woe in dealing with upper educational bullpucky...not necessarily with the schools i've attended adding additional classes, but being screwed over with financial aid because i have too many credits (wha?) so i appealed twice...and the last time they wouldn't grant me financial aid again...i have "too many credits" because the lovely state of idaho accepted HALF of the credits i had taken at a school in oregon, but not the other half so i had to retake the classes they didn't accept so those counted against me...THEN i was registered for a class aaaaaaall of last summer and when i went to check on where the class was going to be located, the class was not on the list...so i went into the school and the lady at the desk said "oh well we dropped you from that class because you didn't pay your tuition by such and such date (which had never been an issue in the past)...we can TRY to get you back in that class but i cant guarantee it, AND you have to pay $500 up front"..................... that was the straw that broke the camels' back...i will not set foot in another idaho school again. unfortunately i have ONE math class left to take to graduate (according to idaho school system) but in OREGON i have all of the necessary classes to graduate, IF they accept my credits from idaho...i shouldve graduated 4 years ago, but it's been one nightmare after another, and i feel like i've wasted all of this for nothing, because of one class...i dont have $500 to take one class...my options at this point are to either try to graduate from the oregon school, or take the CLEP test and test out of that class...to say that i'm at my wits end would be an understatement

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"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
--Ghandi