Le sigh....

We'll see how this works, given I can't read much of it for correctness. Eyes are junked over n stuff, it's late, and I'm finally getting tired.. but thought this might help settle my mind a bit.

(Edit- it did, though I still slept for shit. I'm cleaning up typos on the post and then gonna go back to bed I think. 3am til 6am isn't enough sleep for me to last a whole day any more.)

I've been going to UoP for a while now... after a second attempt at Parkside, after a half-assed first attempt, after hardly an attempt at Waukesha Technical College. So, it's been over 12 years to finish a 4-year degree, and I've still got over half a year left.

My taste for UoP has never been 'great'. I've lived through it, but made some mistakes even here. The class material is finally starting to prove interesting and I'm finally learning something. It's nice to be doing that. But, I'm at tthe point where I'm ready to quit. Not drop out completely, but transfer. Probably to UWN.

First, UoP class structure. 5 weeks. Week 1 = intro. Weks 2-5 = real work. You usually have one personal assignment and one group assignment per week 2-5.

That's all fine and dandy. However, it means you've got 4ish personal assignments and 2-4 group ones. Miss one, you're not getting an A. Not to mention most profs grade on 10 points. Weekly participation s 2-3 points per week, some other filler for 5 points, and then 10 points per assignment. Generally, these total 100.

Now, some teachers decide to do 1000 total pts (or some other number) instead of 100. Fine and dandy. Except for one problem. If you get -3 on a 100-pt paper, ou've got a 97. Same thing on a 10-pt paper, you've got a C. What're the rules regarding this? None.

That's the issue I'm facing in current class. (Well, one of them.) Again. I've had an instance where a teacher was 3 weeks behind in grading feedback... not a big deal cuz the class was a cakewalk. I've had profs that take 2 outta 10 pts if you don't put the heading the right way, or use exact APA format. Whatever.

The last ... 5-6 classes have all been problematic, save for one (well, even that was indirectly a problem). In one was a religion professor that was so obviously biased, it was offensive. ("If we don't have monotheism, what'd stop us from acting like the Nazis did?"). In my last class, we had to work on a database we were supposed to have made the class before; since the prev prof didn't have us make it, half the class was stuck 5 weeks behind the other half. Counselor's response to my complaint- "It's the teacher's prerogative to teach that way."

I was enjoying and hating this class at same time. The syllabus said we're req'd to do a discussion question from lecture, article summary, weekly summary, and SQL programming exercises each week. Order freak; he has a thread for each thing. Except there's no thread for weekly or article summaries, or the lecture DQ (plenty of other DQs). Even asking up through week 3, never got a response as to what to do.

Whatever, I do as much as he says to for it, have been doing okay. Except my summaries are only 150-200 words instead of 250+; I just can't write bullshit fluff (and last I knew, workplaces were concerned with details, not if the report is at least 6 pages or 10 minutes to present). 1.5 outta 3 points, for each of 4 weeks = bye-bye A. Oh, and B is probably gone because even though I posted all the stuff to the main newsgroup on time, since he wants it both places, I didn't post it to assignments on Monday and got 0 of 8 for a week.

Last week's team assignment is to submit a prototype database for a presentation of full SQL code due end of this week. We submit the tables, and 15-20 records for each table (customer names, inventory, suppliers, tax amounts, etc.). We include a few sample reports... and we get 6 outta 10, because we didn't have enough queries or records for 2 tables. WHAT THE FUCK IS A PROTOTYPE? I didn't see "finished product", nor did I see "a minimum of 10 queries".

Oh yeah, and my personal assignment post fubar'ed, so he said to send him a copy of it again. SSo I emailed it to him. His response was that I needed to post it to school newsgroup, he doesn't accept assignments to email. DON'T FUCKING TELL ME TO SEND A COPY TO YOU THEN!

There's a lot more shit going on, and this is all so fricking petty anyway. You'd think I'd get a little better treatment with $1500 per course being plopped down for it. (This is after a tuition increase because I couldn't take more than 2 weeks between classes to move without an increase in tuition.)


so now I sit in a quandry. I've got about ... 10 courses left til graduation. Do I suffer through it and hope the rest aren't as full of shit as the last 5-7 have been, or do I drop a year's worth when my financial aid runs out in June and transfer back to a real school... and be forced to deal with textbooks I probably can't see?


*sigh* Cheery bimbo... err, my academic counselor... will be giving me a call tomorrow after the email I sent her, so we'll see what she has to say. I've got a headache... but at least I'm not fuming mad and tired enough to get some sleep. Sorry again for any typos (not that many read this or would respond anyway).