bureaucratic red tape

College Life
1

<p>I received an email from a professor telling me to call him as soon as possible. I had no idea what this was about, but thought it was pretty serious because he gave me his cell phone number and its friday night.</p>

<p>All juniors at my school are required to fill out this graduation clearance form, its basically so that the school knows where you are in terms of fulfilling degree requirements and what you plan to take your senior year to finish them. </p>

<p>My advisor is currently on sabbatical, so I gave my graduation clearance form with a copy of my transcript to the department head today. This semester and last semester I have been doing reading courses, or independent studies, with a professor in math (my major). My faculty advisor told me that these courses would count towards fulfilling my degree requirements. It turns that the professor I was doing these studies with got an email from the department head saying they don’t count. </p>

<p>If I was a normal junior this wouldn’t be a problem. However, I have already applied to do a 3-2 engineering program. So, this could turn out to be a big problem for me. I would be either one or two classes short. My school has different level of courses, as a math major I need to take 2 100 level electives and 4 200 electives, i took these reading courses to substitute 1 100 level and 1 200 level. The policy is pretty clear that you cannot substitute a reading course for a 200 level course, but it doesn’t say anything about the 100 level course. The reading course is listed as math 299, which my faculty advisor thought fell in the 200 level range. </p>

<p>Luckily, the professor I am working with said he is going to talk to the department head and try to fight this for me. He knows I have already applied for the engineering program, in fact he even wrote one of my recommendations for it. </p>

<p>I personally think its amazing of this professor to email his cell phone number on a friday night telling me to call him so he can help me figure this out. We have definitely started to develop a close relationship over these past two semesters working together.</p>

2

<p>That really is an amazing professor.</p>

3

<p>If he screwed up by giving you bad advice, then I’m sure he feels terribly guilty and wants to do whatever he can to make it right. Best of luck!</p>

4

<p>That professor sounds awesome. Good luck.</p>

5

<p>Crisis averted. </p>

<p>The department head made a deal with me. She signed my form, but she said under no circumstances do reading courses/independent studies substitute either a 100 or 200 level course. If I stay next year she said I need to take 2 more courses, but that she would consider my reading courses as honors work and let me graduate with highest departmental honors. That was really generous of her and much more than I expected. At the very least I was expecting she wouldn’t sign my form at all.</p>

6

<p>Little update.</p>

<p>The professor who helped me out is going up for tenure, so the department head asked me to write a letter of recommendation for him. </p>

<p>I also got him a gift. One of these I figured he would appreciate it.</p>

7

<p>lol, I didn’t get my college diploma for about a year after I graduated.</p>

<p>I skipped my graduation ceremony and didn’t know I had to fill out paperwork confirming I was graduating.</p>

<p>My parents asked when I’d get my diploma and I said, “Oh, they will just mail it to me.”</p>

<p>A year later I finally called and they informed me that I need to send in the proper forms.</p>

<p>It was mailed a few weeks later.</p>