Grades came in Monday. I passed my hell class. YAY! I woke up early Monday and logged in to see my grades, nervous, ready to jump on the appeal train if shit didn’t go as planned. I scroll down and see the lovely, lovely words “Academic Probation Removed”. Yeah, boyyeeeee! I am now officially one class and one comprehensive exam away from my degree. And I can’t fucking wait.
Category: school
Spring semester was a disaster. Contact advisor, get told I must retake that class and register for one other (better to get the overall gpa up). Fine. Early registration had come and gone. And if I hadn’t held on to hope like a rat on a piece of driftwood in a hurricane, I would have registered for the fuck up class back then. At the end of spring there were 13 spots open for that class. Registration/schedule changes don;t happen until 8/12. So how is it that when I look today, there are only 3 (THREE) seats left? Goddammit.
Imagine, you are 3 goddamn classes (and a test) away from a graduate degree and shit starts to go pear shaped. Do you push through the pain? Or say “fuck it! I quit!” Because, goddamn, that quit option looks mighty tempting.
Man oh man have a got a doozy for y’all.
With every passing semester, I have become increasingly disillusioned with my grad school experience. From the shitty selection of classes for the remote campus folk to the difficulty in actually getting the classes I need to the absolutely shit-ass parking situation that NO ONE seemed to think about before opening up another goddamn school. Wednesday, however, was IT. I mean, the ultimate in “wow, this department really does not give two shits about us.”
To remain in the CS grad program, you must take two tests during your first semester. One is a communications test (write an essay, prove you can communicate in English very much good) and a programming skills test. This test is on paper and the language is C++. Woe unto you if you are steeped in Java or any other language not C++. Me? I suck at it. I was never formally taught it, so my brain defaults to C. I failed the test. I felt like a goddamned moron. If you fail this test, you have to burn 3 credit hours (and about $1k) to take a programming remedial course. The course itself is fine. I guess. It’s a crash course in C++, perfect for someone who needs to brush up on skills, horrible for anyone who has no idea how programming works. So here I sat in that class with about 15 other people. 15. When I took the test there were about 30 people. Wow, I thought, we’re all morons! OH NO NO NO. I found out Wednesday that the fail rate is 50%. 50% of students who take this test fail it (or if you’re a glass-is-half-full kinda person, 50% pass it). You know who’s in that 50%? Not just “never touched code in my life” people, but people like my classmate who CODES IN C++ FOR A GODDAMN LIVING. Wouldn’t that mean that there’s a problem with the test? According to my Wednesday professor? Hell yes. According to the rest of the department? Oh no! It’s actually good that students fail that test! Yeah, so they have to spend more money to take the required remedial class that counts toward your GPA but not towards your credit hours for graduation. I almost cannot think of a more blatant money grab than this heap of horseshit. Okay fine, so you fail this test and take the class. Is it ever taught in Round Rock? Nope. The guy who teaches it will NEVER come to Round Rock. Ever. This is what my prof is saying, point blank. She recommended that people email the department and say “hey we want the class taught in Round Rock” and if they get 10 (maybe 5) or more, they will honor that request. I laughed. Out loud. She claimed that the department really does care about the remote students. I laughed again and said quite plainly “It sure doesn’t feel like it.” And then I told her how I had in fact emailed the department about the weak class selection, the fact that required classes are being offered with ridiculous timing (once every 2 years in Round Rock? Really?), and the lack of talks/symposiums/etc for us remote folks. What have I gotten back? Absolutely nothing. No “we’re looking into it”, no “thank you for your concern”, not even a “hey, we got your email”. Disillusioned and pretty pissed? Yeah. You might say that.
I like my Wednesday night professor. She;s nice, she gives a shit, she’s one of two that seem to. The other? Also female and getting shit on by the department as far as I can tell. Well, you tell me, what do you call it when you take a damn fine professor and instead of having her teach something she knows cold and is considered the best in that subject, you have her teach something like Ethics (sophomore level class, no less), leaving her subject to be taught by someone who doesn’t have a clue. Never taught it, barely knows the subject and subsequently fucks it up for everyone? Exactly.
So, no, this is not about begging for professor’s time or being their slaves (not for me, anyway. I’m not doing a research track). It’s about them seriously not giving a shit and trying to grab whatever cash they can.
I pulled another all nighter. I just hit that “whoa, the world be spinnin’ yo!” feeling. If I stay still and not look around (you know, like I have been doing for the last 24 hours),it’s all good. Oh what was I working on?
That same project that ate my lunch last week.
I am not much better off than I was last week. I got *a little* more done, but shit be fucked. And you know what?
I don’t care.
I am too tired to care. My ass hurts, my hands are cold, and I didn’t know it until I look ed around too quickly, I’m dizzy.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
My bullshit generator is a beast, I tell you. a mother fucking BEAST! I added so many more pages of “oh this is the in depth reason why I did this” and “oh look, here’s a figure of a snippet of code so I can pad that “table of figure” section”.
Me and Word, it’s like a shitty relationship you just don’t care to leave. When it’s good, it’s AWESOME, when it sucks, you wanna switch to notepad. Today? Me and Word be tight, yo.
I should go to sleep. But I can’t I have to wrestle with Visio and make more charts. I don’t have the same relationship with Visio as I do with Word. This? This is like meeting a friend of a friend a couple of times, then having to unexpectedly stay overnight. 15 kinds of awkward.
It was either continue with horrible broken C, or scrap it and use C++. I scrapped it and rewrote it. I am not much better off than I was last week. I got *a little* more done, but shit be fucked. And you know what?
I don’t care.
I am too tired to care. My ass hurts, my hands are cold, and I didn’t know it until I look ed around too quickly, I’m dizzy.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
My bullshit generator is a beast, I tell you. A mother fucking BEAST! I added so many more pages of “oh this is the in depth reason why I did this” and “oh look, here’s a figure of a snippet of code so I can pad that “table of figure” section” to my report, it looks almost presentable.
Me and Word, it’s like a shitty relationship you just don’t care to leave. When it’s good, it’s AWESOME, when it sucks, you just wanna switch to notepad. Today? Me and Word be tight, yo. Word is my homie. I’m gonna friend him on MyFaceTweetBook.
I should go to sleep. But I can’t. I have to wrestle with Visio and make more charts. I don’t have the same relationship with Visio as I do with Word. This? This is like meeting a friend of a friend a couple of times, then having to unexpectedly stay overnight. 15 kinds of awkward.
Goons can be so very right sometimes:
“Grad school is like the leveling part of an MMORPG- Sure there are interesting projects and a touch of camaraderie (quests, dungeons) but you’re never going to get to max level (Ph.D.) without a long boring grind of tedious, repetitive, often unthinking, and seemingly never-ending tasks. To get through it you don’t ever stop, shunning breaks [poopsock joke here], and isolating yourself to the point even friends become a burden. Finally you get to end game (post doc) but you’re still on the bottom of the totem pole, in danger of being ganked (scooped) and getting paid shit (no dkp) until at last you’re a guild leader (full professor) and finally get to spend your time thinking about interesting problems (raid progression) and yelling at underlings.”
I look up from my keyboard because I hear th bedroom door open. It’s @aelerelean. He’s up. To go to work. Oh god, it’s 7:15am…and I’m. Still. Working. On. The. Report. I gave up on the coding around 5am. I work until he leaves, then get dressed, grab 2 more 5 hour energys and leave. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
I get work work. I finish my report. It is surreal. My bullshit river has some serious flow when I’m sleep deprived. As I finish, I realize I have no idea how to submit it. He never said. I print out a copy and take my flash drive. I get to class. and I watch as 5 people show up, two of which put their hardcopy (SPIRAL BOUND) reports on the front table. I put my stapled copy up front. Class slowly fills up. No one has slept. No one. In the middle of lecture he asks “so, who’s not happy with their project?” Not like “Hey, let’s talk about the project” I mean “So here is the algorithm for this search. Now let me draw this node tree. Who isn’t happy with their project?”
Long story short (because I still haven’t slept and I’m hungry): He extended it another week. And even said “Hey if you guys had said something last week, I would have extended it.”
*cry*
And here’s a public apology to my partner. Her code didn’t work either. SHE didn’t want to hold ME up. 🙁
And I’m still awake. Why? Because I just fucked in the ass by another group project for class.
Note: DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE DAY BEFORE THE GODDAMN PROJECT IS DUE TO TELL YOUR PARTNER “Oh, since we never properly split up the duties, maybe we should just do this individually.” ASSFUCKING AHOY!
Hey, I’ll take some of the blame. What in the FUCK made me think I could handle 3 classes with projects? But you know what? I AGONIZED over this fucking thing because I KNEW she had more time to work on it and I didn’t want to leave HER high and dry. She started working on the other part of the project, I continued with the first part thinking, “okay, I just need her code and run it and write my report.” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. At 7:30pm I found out I was fucked good and proper.
NEVER THE FUCK AGAIN.
Goddamn I can’t wait to fucking graduate.
Oh, and I haven’t even STARTED on the OTHER one for a different class that’s due in HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA two weeks! Nor have I studied for the midterm that’s HAHAHAHAHOHMYFUCKINGODHAHAHAHAHAHA in a week and a half!
“Gee, Topenga, why do you need a Costco case of 5 hour energy? No one needs that much!” WHO’S LAUGHING NOW, DICKNIPPLES????
AND, she has my MOTHERFUCKING CODE. FUCK PISS ASS.
Tuesday
Class name: Formal Methods of Software Engineering
Group work: NONE
Class vibe: Fucking. Sweet.
Cost of books: less than $80 used, older editions
Wednesday
Class name: Databases
Group work: minor
Class vibe: pretty goddamn sweet!
Cost of books: As little as $2. Older editions encouraged.
Monday (haven’t been yet)
Class name: Artificial Intelligence
Group work: I dunno yet I fear there will be much,
Class vibe: I have been warned about it many times. I have no choice but to take it. It’s required.
Cost of book: $116 used. Edition? The one that came out 2 months ago. I am crying. $175 I spent on books, $120 of that (plus shipping) was on one book. And there are no international editions. Goddamn I forgot what that felt like.
You may have seen my tweet about wondering if one can sue a university for shitty ass parking. You might think “ha ha ha, everyone’s campus is shitty! What can you do?” I don;t think you quite understand just how bad it is. During the winter break, it would have been an amusing idea. After going back for two days, I am almost dead fucking serious. The place where I take my classes is a satellite campus that shares a building with 2 other higher education institutions. Okay, fuck being all sly and anonymous. It’s Texas State University at the Round Rock Higher Education Center. In one building is Texas State, Austin Community College, and Temple College at Taylor. Neat, right? Get your learn on 3 different ways when it’s (somewhat) convenient for you? A few brush up classes, associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s degrees? One somewhat central location? Fucking sweet, right?
Fucking sucks hairy pig balls.
1,737 (highest enrollment ever, up 14.1% since fall ’08) students, waaaaayyy less than that amount of parking spaces. Now, I don’t expect one spot per student, Christ no. What I do expect is to not be late for class every day because you’re having to stalk pedestrians for their spots.
Q: Why don’t you just quit being a baby and park far out and just ride a bus in?
A: There is no bus. There is no remote parking. Here’s a map. You see all that purple? That’s where students can park. Looks like a lot, doesn’t it. You would be wrong. The wrongiest wrong person who has ever been wrong. If you look closely, there are lines in that purple to show parking spots. I believe that they are true to form. As in, you see a section of 4 spots, there’s really four spots there. So those 3 lonely green spots? There really are two car sized parking spots for motorcycles. That’s it. Those poor bastards.
Q: So just park in those far out spots at the top of the map or way to the right. You need to be right up close to the building! What a lazy skag.
A: Every single purple spot was full. Every single spot. Every one. The only thing to do is circle until someone leaves. The problem is that THERE ARE NO MORE SPOTS. There is no other lot and there are no side streets. The next closest place is a hospital who will tow your ass so goddamn fast it’s amazing.
Q: It’s the start of the semester, it’ll get better with time.
A: Parking was almost this bad at the beginning of last semester. It barely got better. Barely. It’s much worse now. It will not be better. I promise you. Look at the map. You see that huge arc of street? See how it divides the parking lot? Over on the left, people are parking on that stretch of lot. To give them credit, the campus police only gave tickets to people without permits. As I was parking last night (I got so fucking lucky that I may have permanently lost any chance of getting any kind of parking spot ever) There were officers directing traffic. Directing. Traffic. This was some Black Friday/Tax Free Weekend At The Outlet Mall shit. This is wrong.
In the distance, you can see two more buildings going up. These I have now learned are the new ACC Round Rock buildings. And all I can say is THANK FUCK. These buildings are far enough out that they will have their own lots. But my GOD. It’s like they never planned for people to actually come to this campus. The nursing school will also be on this campus. It doesn’t look like it’s started yet, but you can only imagine how many more students that will bring.
In short, this is an epic clusterfuck.
It’s just been a shitty finals week all around, it seems. I still have a project due and my tale of last night’s woe is NOTHING, NOTHING I say, compared to what my sister went through. I present to you: Statistics Clusterfuck: A Holiday Story by @Dezdimona16 and illustrated by @Dezdimona16*
I would just like to say for the record I regret absolutely nothing! My only crime was asking for something simple of someone who is incapable of doing anything simple.
It started Monday, Monday I had to take a test for Trig because my trig teacher squeezed in another test before the final that I had no choice but to take on Monday, The test took me 4 hours to finish so I was late and hour late to Statistics. Which was okay I had expected this and had asked Jordann to get me a review. It was a standard review nothing I had not seen from tests past, he was to put the answers on blackboard no big deal in fact it looked quite easy.
Night turns to day, leaves fall, another child is born, ma puts up the Christmas lights and Tuesday rolls around and I notice “oh hey Bob hasn’t sent the review yet no big deal perhaps he’s grading today surely after i take my much needed 5 hour nap to make up for the three days of sleep I’ve missed it’ll be up” 6pm rolls around and still no answers, I am dismayed and a little worries”perhaps Bob simply forgot, no worries I shall remind him through email” 1AM PASSES and both me and my comrade Jordan are FUCKING FILLED WITH RAGE! There are no answers we don’t know how to do the review because BOB can’t teach for shit! 1am I could have been done, I could have looked over the review clarified a few things myself, gotten my cheat sheet and been done! And godammit email is not a new invention if you say contact me in emails than mother fucker needs to check his email.
Monday morning comes and there is still no damn answers so I’m pissed, I wake up pissed (in part to the fact that clay decided to mass text plans for next fucking week at 730, the phone wouldn’t stop ringing and the damn fax machine kept blinking) I shower pissed off, I drive pissed off and the classical music in my car is just painting a picture of my vengeance as I barrel down the road! The only thing that would have completed my rage is if the radio had been playing Night on Bald Mountain (You know the song in fantasia where Satan emerges! ). I make my way across campus my black sweater flapping in the wind making me look like some evil deity which was more than appropriate considering the ungodly violent thoughts going through my head. I get to class and there is Bob and instead of acting on my violent thoughts in a very unhappy tone I ask him “What the fuck and how are we going to fix it”. No shit, he sent the review to the wrong class! What. The. Fuck. I am being taught by the absent minded professor and instead all the child like charm I get unreliable retarded puppy. He goes off to make copies of the answers figuring there will be more angry students. After some time passes everyone has a copy of the review we are all trying to figure out things we convince him to make it open book. This is where i made a mistake. I was the one who asked, could we make it open note and book and instead of just going yes and leave us he remembers he has to literally walk us through a problem because he forgot to teach it.THIS IS A FINAL WHAT THE HELL!
The final descended into madness, it was like a lecture/final. in which no one knew what the hell was going on, I just sat there and did my test as he repeated a problem 5 times! I have never seen anything like it. A girl actually got up and walked out(probably to go report him!) it was just fucking ridiculous. I have never seen something dissolve into madness so quickly! After the test (which by the way was like 6 questions long) I literally ran away from the class! I ran and did not look back. And when I made it to the bridge I dropped so many F bombs people down the street could hear me! I don’t know what just happened to me; I am neither upset about the test or happy. I am in a Buddha state, it just happened and it just is! Maybe it’s post traumatic stress but I’m content on pretending this day never happened, this class never happened and right now I need to study for a real final.
Jesus. Fuck.