Hello there. I had yet another eventful week as a CLU student. You may recall that several posts ago I mentioned that I took a sociology class called Intro. to World Cultures, which was actually a cultural anthropology class. It's only under sociology because CLU has no anthropology department. Being that I started at CLU during the spring semester of my freshman year, I had this class assigned to me as all first semester students do. At this time I had an assigned advisor who was also the CLU basketball coach, not an actual teacher. So, needless to say, I didn't get very good advice from him. Even worse is I didn't know it was bad advice until after the damage had been done and my new advisor told me what should have been done. One of the ridiculous things that happened involved this one class and it ineligibility to count for a social science credit. Okay, lets look at this. My sociology class was INELIGIBLE to count for a social science credit. Okay, what is more social science-y than sociology? It made zero sense to me.
I kind of accepted this until I met with my brilliant advisor, who has already saved my you know what several times. We both realized that the same exact class, with the same teacher (becuase she only taught part time at CLU and part time at Moorpark College), and the same exact book transfers in from Moorpark to CLU for social science as apart of the CLU articulation agreement. So basically, the class I took would have counted if I had brought it in from Moorpark, but because I took it at my university it doesn't. Perhaps you are even more confused now than you were before.
This all relates back to the CLU Sociology department. It is widely known throughout the campus that the sociology department is quite full of themselves when compared to other departments. Whereas ALL history classes offered count for history credit there are only a handful of sociology classes that count towards social science. They refuse to approve some classes because they don't provide a certain kind of theory behind their content that the regular SOC 101 classes do. They also believe that if more students take SOC 101 that they will automatically want to become sociology majors. In an attempt to make some kind of sense of all this madness I emailed both my registrar advisor and the head of the sociology department explaining to them my confusion and asking for some kind of explanation. I got the same non-answer from both of them of "it just doesn't count, sorry".
During another meeting with my amazing advisor we decided that it was worth while to fill out a petition to appeal that class to count for social science credit. I mean the worst they could say is no right? So I went to the office and filled out the form only to find out that I had to go get the signature of the Sociology Department head, the same man who had already told me No via email. I decided this was really something I needed to do because I was already so impacted with the courses I need for my major much less having time to fit in another social science class. I am basically trying to graduate with a double major in 3 1/2 years with internships, so I have to manage my time very well. I waited for him by his office for a good 40 minutes before he actually stopped by. I wanted to get this over with as soon as possible so he couldn't get anything else on his mind. I basically went in ready for a fight because he had already told me no once. However, I was greatly surprised when he listened to me very intently and then proceeded to pick up his phone and call the registrars office. He was unaware of the inconsistency between the registrars articulation agreement and the Soc. department guidelines. Being that I am an English and History major social science is not vital to my education in my desired field. He knew that this was unfair and decided I should be awarded the credit I deserve and signed to approve my position.
The decision is finalized at the weekly department meetings, so I won't find out if it is officially approved until Tuesday afternoon. Considering I got the signature of the department head I have around a 99% chance of getting the credit. I will make sure to tell you all know when or if I am approved. I am truly hoping the rest of the semester goes smoothly because if I have to deal with some new politics every week of school I am going to be burnt out by the end. This coming week is filled with working at the bookstore. Thursday is Senior Salute which is where all the seniors/grad students buy their caps and gowns and whatnot. The bookstore provides that service along with jostens so Thursday I work a solid 9-5 shift. I make bank but I will most definitely be exhausted. Hope you all are having wonderful times at your respective schools.
ashley, that sounds like hell. i'm sorry you have to deal with so much of this sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteYou'll get it petitioned. I can definitely relate to your adventure. I have tiredly but successfully petitioned 4 things here at Gonzaga and one of them was so painful. I wanted to have my speech class from Pierce count for my required speech class at Gonzaga but they wouldn't take it. I talked to someone (who I was told was the department chair) for like 3 weeks trying to petition it and she said no. So I asked her if there was another person I could talk to and she directed me to the actual department chair *world's largest face palm*
ReplyDeleteIsn't it funny that you pay a ridiculous amount of money to go to that school, and then have to deal with crap like that. I always find that irony hilarious, a pain, but funny nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteI think it's because the level of education may imply to some admins that special and unique "learning tracks" should be taken and if tampered with, the whole world will fall apart.
ReplyDelete