Were we wrong
June 17, 2008Do you really care about what I have to say, Rube? Georgia asks.
Sure, Rube replies, I make my face look like this and the concerned words come out.
And that’s how I feel about my university.
Rewind back to last February. My friends and I are doing our jolly jobs of working for university, when we realise we forgot to sign up for a course called Formulating - in fact, the course had already begun 1.5 weeks ago - one of the prerequisite courses for the Master in Journalism. That was of course our very own stupid fault, let there be no mistake about that.
Anyway we quickly emailed the responsible professor, and decided to hop by our study counsellor, to honestly explain everything, and we expected to be able to join in, even though we were slightly late - professors generally don’t make a huge fuss about such a thing.
Boy, were we wrong.
The professor did not allow us to join. Our counsellor told us she felt very sorry for us, but that she couldn’t do anything about it. No one can force a professor to admit students into his or her classes, so going to a higher level in the organisational hierarchy would be fruitless. We came up with countless possible solutions, looking for any leniency, any flexibility, any help. We didn’t get any. It was hopeless.
We were forced to do an entire year extra, solely to follow one course.
We were dumbstruck. It was another cock-up in a long line of cock-ups - a line I could fill three blogs with for 5 years on end. It also so happened this would become the final wave that would break the dyke - we lost our motivation, our spirit. The cause? Our study is a very broad one, so inevitably, there’s a lot of ‘noise’ subjects that are mandatory but simply aren’t very interesting. We fought our way through them because we knew there’d be light at the end of the tunnel: our Master in Journalism. We were looking forward to it, and we worked hard to pass even the most boring of courses (I passed Statistics with a 7.5/10!), because we knew that once we had bitten through the sour apple (as we Dutch say), we’d be rewarded with what we al wanted to do: Journalism.
Automotive journalism for Marco, television for Levi, sports for Martin, and technology and computing for yours truly.
And that dream was more or less smashed. Like I said, it was our fault - but the punishment is disproportionate to the offence committed. The ever-present cynical part of me keeps saying: this ensures another year of College money for the VU University. That’s 4 times €1565,-. You do the math.
I’ve been struggling ever since with what to do about this. I thought about abandoning my chosen path and focussing solely on translation, which I thoroughly enjoy doing. Were I to do that, I could simply ignore everything having to do with the Master in Journalism, and start a translation-related Master somewhere in February next season, using the first part of the season to follow any prerequisite courses.
You may wonder why I’m so bogged down by having to complete another year - a lot of students fail to complete their study in the assigned four years, so what’s all the fuss about? Well, you have to realise I already threw away two years by studying Psychology, so it feels as if this will be the third extra year. I realise this is idiotic (my current study and Psychology are two separate entities) but hey, have fun convincing my feelings. AS IF THEY EVER LISTEN TO WHAT I HAVE TO SAY.
After months of thinking, I made a decision. I’m going to do the extra year, and also use that year for two other purposes: I won’t be burdening my summer with passing any possibly failed courses, instead doing them next year. In addition, I will fill my time with subjects of my choosing, mostly related to translation, and maybe throw in some Psychology subjects too.
This will still inevitably mean I have a lot of extra time on my hands, which I will put into thinking about starting ‘for myself’ when I’m done with university. Yes, I want to become a freelance writer and translator, allowing me to fill in my own time. I loved translating, most notably writing professional subtitles for Dutch TV, which fascinated me beyond imagination. Translating is like programming in many ways; it’s never done, always full of bugs, and everyone has their own ideas on how to achieve perfection.
But right now, I’ve had it with the VU University. I’ll be picking up Alice/Deesie coming Sunday, The Netherlands has a serious chance at grabbing the title, I kissed and made up with a friend of mine, my parents are healthy, I have the best friends one could ever wish for, and I’m feeling more confident about myself, the universe and everything else than ever before. I don’t want to worry about university any more.
You know what the irony is of all this? If we had kept our mouths shut, and just slipped into class after those 1.5 weeks, no one would have given a damn or even noticed. The fact we decided to be good boys screwed us over.
I also don’t have a lot of interest in being a good person or a bad person, Georgia said, From what I can tell, either way, you’re screwed.
This is actually very valuable lesson, if you choose to learn from it.
Suppose I said,
“If you show up at my office at 8:00am on some particular day, I will give you
$26,000,000. If you are one second late, I will give you nothing”.
I suspect you would probably drop whatever you were doing,
and come camp out at the door in front of my office and stay there
until 8:00am of the designated day. Perhaps weeks in advance.
It is all a matter of knowing the consequences of action/inaction.
Comment by Eric Goff — June 17, 2008 @ 5:22 pm
Nice analogy, except for that bit where it’s flawed.
I’m not paying you to provide me with that service, nor are you obliged to help me in any way. In other words, you don’t owe me anything - contrary to my professors, who have a duty to teach and guide us, and who are paid by MY money.
Comment by Administrator — June 17, 2008 @ 5:25 pm
It was november, btw, formulating. Fcuk the VU.
Comment by Levi — June 17, 2008 @ 9:04 pm
Tom, I can really share the pain. I’d go completely nuts if something like that happened to me.
The fact is, the only reason we ever needed to go to university was because most jobs will need you to have a diplomas. Whatever Uni might teach is 99% stuff you already know or can learn reading a few books in 1/10th the time. So we just go there to get a piece of paper. However, you need to subscribe the whole year in order to pass the exams, else they won’t let you.
Universities have a monopoly, not on knowledge, but on diplomas, and they try to maintain the image they’re temple of knowledge by creating fake difficulties like that. And it’s not like the teaching is great - actually you never see the best teachers more than one year, because the others are scared they’d steal the spotlight (at the time I was at Uni, the only 2 good teachers only had 1 year contracts, and no hope to get the job).
Like you said, had you just slipped into the classroom, it wouldn’t have made a difference. Actually, you could have just slipped in for the exam, while not attending any lessons, and nobody would have noticed (provided there’s enough students in your section).
If I were you, I’d never have accepted the idea to do another year for a silly reason like that. However, I’d have just slipped in for the exam ;) , which I don’t consider honest or dishonest, since they assume we’re paying for the diplomas, not for the teaching.
But I’ve seen many students having to redo a year for petty reasons like that, when simple logic wouldn’t necessitate it.
Comment by t3g — June 18, 2008 @ 9:11 am