August 27, 2009

• FML

  Have you ever experienced so much frustration and anger that you could literally pump iron until your body can barely lift a soda can only to find you’re still so pissed that not moving makes you want to violently attack anything within reach? I’m experiencing that right now. My diploma for my masters degree has been withheld. The reason? I’m 7% of a passing grade from passing a theology course that the professor described as “requiring effort on your part to fail.”

  Let’s recount the ways I could have possibly passed this class. 1, I could have been given credit for the reading I did – interestingly enough that would cover the 7% all by itself. 2, my solid papers could have been graded by someone capable of reading. I make this charge because the major complaint on two papers was “Did you even read the instructions?” Which makes me want to scream “I PRACTICALLY HELD THEM NEXT TO THE SCREEN WHILE I TYPED THE PAPER” and then point out in each paper where I met each criteria. Looking at the papers, I cannot comprehend how I could receive anything less than a C unless the professor was purposefully trying to fail me. Apparently she misspoke – it required “effort on her part” to fail.

  And despite how insane this is, her department chair backed her – even on giving me ZERO credit on the reading (10% of the final grade being reading completion). It’s been over an hour since I received the email summarized as “tough cookies” and despite my best efforts to at least exhaust myself I’m still only moments away from injecting “fuck” between every single angry word that spills from my mouth. I’m about ready to lift a car into the air and scream until my throat is hoarse but this post isn’t the work of a mindless goon. I’d say it’s quite clear despite my barely contained rage. And yet I’m somehow too stupid to follow the direction in a syllabus where you have to TRY to fail. I also knew the difference between my degree and this kind of crap was writing two solid papers – and my bad papers are usually B’s.

  So why do I feel like I’m taking crazy pills? How is a B or better student in a MASTERS program at a upper tier school so incompetent as to get “Did you even read the directions?” on TWO papers?! How on earth does it make any logical sense to NOT see a problem with that scenario? Instead they’re telling me to take the whole damnable class over again to the tune of another $1000 worth of studying I already did and hated because it was the most boring and poorly taught class I had there. Insult, meet Injury – Injury, please join Insult in raping Logic and Justice.

  This is a “Christian” institution, folks, and although I recognize they’re dedicated to quality over mercy I also recognize the lack of quality lies in them and has only served to deny me what is rightfully mine. I’m sorely tempted to tell them I’d rather get hit by a train than take a degree from their institution – which would truly be flushing two years of schooling but to have to crawl back to them and pay them to make me do all my work over again…I’d pretty much have to tell my pride, principles, and sense of justice to look me up in five months.

  Honestly, I have nothing positive to say about that institution and if I wasn’t potentially facing being stuck there AGAIN I’d name them. The only thing that school taught me was how to put up with bureaucratic nonsense and how to restrain myself from flicking off the idiots in charge – which means I’m primed for the military or politics. I need my degree for licensing or I’d just take it on the nose – I’d rather not have a diploma from a school that’s hurt me in many more ways that just the ones chronicled here. This is just the icing on the Abuse Cake.

  • 1:03 pm
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