School Bells

[papayahed]

Oh, come on, these things happen Don't take it so hard.

I am in a dilemma:

The diploma course I have to / want to do next year is offered to me this year and I am very tempted to go for it. If I do, I will be following two part-time not-very-related programmes (together it will be more than a full-time programme, actually). , wondering if I can pull that off on top of part-time work and everyday worries.

Also, I will have to attend workshops (monthly I think), which I am not very keen on.

On the positive side, it will all be over, come June 2010.

What say you?

If you can keep up with everything I say give it a try but I'm not sure how your 13 children will feel about it.

[Scheherazade]

If you can keep up with everything I say give it a try but I'm not sure how your 13 children will feel about it.

14 you mean... Forgotten the last one?

[Annamariah]

My school year starts on Monday. Yikes!

The part is that this year we have to sign up for our courses online. I tried to sign in to the website the university uses for this five minutes after the sign-up time started, and it just wouldn't let me in. I kept trying for an hour, but then I had to give up and prepare for work. At work I managed to get in, but at that point one compulsory course I can't graduate without was full and I'll only get in if half of the people will cancel. Thank you so much, university!

It's ridiculous that there are thousands of people waiting for the exact second the sign-up time begins to be able to click themselves on the courses, and then they are full in 30 seconds and the whole system collapses when everyone's trying to sign up at the same time and those who weren't there at the exact second the sign-up time started won't even get to the whole site. Yippee.

At this rate I guess I'm never going to graduate...

[Niamh]

My school year starts on Monday. Yikes!

The part is that this year we have to sign up for our courses online. I tried to sign in to the website the university uses for this five minutes after the sign-up time started, and it just wouldn't let me in. I kept trying for an hour, but then I had to give up and prepare for work. At work I managed to get in, but at that point one compulsory course I can't graduate without was full and I'll only get in if half of the people will cancel. Thank you so much, university!

It's ridiculous that there are thousands of people waiting for the exact second the sign-up time begins to be able to click themselves on the courses, and then they are full in 30 seconds and the whole system collapses when everyone's trying to sign up at the same time and those who weren't there at the exact second the sign-up time started won't even get to the whole site. Yippee.

At this rate I guess I'm never going to graduate...

Surely if it was compulsory for you to pass to graduate they would have automatically registered you for the course! Thats stupid.

[Annamariah]

Surely if it was compulsory for you to pass to graduate they would have automatically registered you for the course! Thats stupid.

No, they won't. That's how stupid this system is. Also they've put some compulsory courses so that the schedules clash and unless I learn to be at two places at the same time I won't be able to take them all I really do hope they will do something about it, I can't be the only one whose graduation depends on certain courses that are at the same time.

[Maximilianus]

No, they won't. That's how stupid this system is. Also they've put some compulsory courses so that the schedules clash and unless I learn to be at two places at the same time I won't be able to take them all I really do hope they will do something about it, I can't be the only one whose graduation depends on certain courses that are at the same time.

What a problem Anna! So because of this you may lose a year or a semester? Do you have anything like a students' union to have them ask authorities for a change in class schedules? ... or maybe you can do a demonstration... if you have the habit in Finland (there are places where malcontent students' demonstrations and uprisings are quite frequent )

[Annamariah]

What a problem Anna! So because of this you may lose a year or a semester? Do you have anything like a students' union to have them ask authorities for a change in class schedules? ... or maybe you can do a demonstration... if you have the habit in Finland (there are places where malcontent students' demonstrations and uprisings are quite frequent )

I guess I'll just have to go and cry and cry to the teachers long enough that they'll either let me take the course after all, change the schedule or let me pass the course by writing some papers and taking some sort of an exam.

Though at the moment it seems that the translation courses I'm supposed to take this year aren't necessarily even going to be taught, which is an even bigger problem... But surely they must come up with some solution, as they've accepted my individual study plan two years ago

I just don't understand how come they're complaining that people take too much time to graduate (on average seven years when the recommended time is five years) and then they do their best to make that five-year-graduation impossible. I'm supposed to get the lower degree ready after this year and the upper one in two years after that (so that I'd get the whole thing together in five years), but it seems a bit difficult at the moment.

But as the semester starts tomorrow and I'll be able to see the teachers face-to-face, I'm hoping things will clear up Last year there was a major case of clashing courses when the semester begun, but after some persuasion I managed to get one course completely rescheduled and managed to get into one group that didn't really have a place for me

[Maximilianus]

I guess I'll just have to go and cry and cry to the teachers long enough that they'll either let me take the course after all, change the schedule or let me pass the course by writing some papers and taking some sort of an exam.

Though at the moment it seems that the translation courses I'm supposed to take this year aren't necessarily even going to be taught, which is an even bigger problem... But surely they must come up with some solution, as they've accepted my individual study plan two years ago

I just don't understand how come they're complaining that people take too much time to graduate (on average seven years when the recommended time is five years) and then they do their best to make that five-year-graduation impossible. I'm supposed to get the lower degree ready after this year and the upper one in two years after that (so that I'd get the whole thing together in five years), but it seems a bit difficult at the moment.

But as the semester starts tomorrow and I'll be able to see the teachers face-to-face, I'm hoping things will clear up Last year there was a major case of clashing courses when the semester begun, but after some persuasion I managed to get one course completely rescheduled and managed to get into one group that didn't really have a place for me

Then go execute that persuading skill of yours
Good luck on Monday.... go teacher-head hunting, Valkyrie

[Niamh]

Fingers crossed my letters arrive today so i can get them in the registered post and hopefully back to belfast by friday!!! I really dont want to have to start in feb. I cant imagine trying to do my assignments in the summer when i'm working 45-50 hour weeks.

[Niamh]

I'M GOING BACK TO COLLEGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I got over to my mams and there were no forms, so i called them up and explained i hadnt recieved them. they checked system by confirming my name, first line of home address and DOB and discovered i'd been sent the forms twice. the ones from 2nd hadnt arrived, and the sent more today? so they passed me on to the Milton Keynes office who were equally surprised and i mentioned they were being sent from belfast. so she checked it out and there were deffo two different sets sent out but wasnt sure why. She decided she was going to email them to me which i thought was great. then she asked how i was going to pay and when i mentioned via card, she was like " oh! i can do that for you over the phone!" so did it over the phone and she said " all done! will take about 24hrs to process but you are now registered for your course and went through everything about logging into the site etc. she told me she'd get the confirmation sent via email! I'm a student again! And its a scary thought!

[Scheherazade]

Excellent news, Niamh!

[Niamh]

Excellent news, Niamh!

((((((hug))))))) Thanks for everything.

[Scheherazade]

((((((hug))))))) Thanks for everything.

Aww, thanks for the hug but I haven't done anything. It is so nice to see you so excited about going back to your studies

Just try not to remember too "fondly" when the deadlines approach and you don't feel like doing your assignments!

[papayahed]

I'M GOING BACK TO COLLEGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alllllllllll Riiiiiiiiiggghhhhtttt

[Annamariah]

So the classes begun today. I arrived at the university rather early, which turned out to be a great idea, as it took me 20 minutes just to find the correct classroom which was in the first floor, but which you couldn't reach unless you went via the third floor (now just how stupid is that? But I guess that will not be the case forever, as the remodelling of the building is still a work in progress). Well, I finally found the correct place, but when the teacher arrived, he said that we can't really do anything because a) there were no headphones and b) the computers weren't connected to the network, so we couldn't do the Russian listening comprehension exercises the course is all about or even get the study material...

After such an encouraging start to the new semester the next class was a bit easier to find, though it took quite a long time to get there, as it was in another building. The teacher spoke all too quietly in a huge classroom (she refused to use the microphone), and as Swedish grammar is not very interesting at any rate, it wasn't always that easy to follow the lection.

After my second class I was already very hungry, but didn't have the time to have lunch, as half-an-hour break between the classes just isn't long enough to even get past the queue in the cafeteria.

My third class, which is the reason I cannot attend a compulsory literature class (which has a HUGE amount of reading I now had to study on my own and just hope to pass the exam) was frankly a disappointment. Because they changed all the courses now I have to take this course which is obviously meant for first-year-students, and as a third-year-student there's hardly anything I don't already know. It's so very frustrating to sit there just to be able to write about the lection later, especially when I know I'm missing another class that would probably be much more useful.

I didn't find any of the teachers I need to talk to about the courses I'm not able or allowed to attend, I didn't have time to have lunch in the cafeteria at all, as I was called to work straight from school and basically my whole day pretty much sucked.

I just hope it will get better!