Disorganised Uni!, Not happy.... Options

[{Manda}]

Well my Uni kicks back off on 3 March - next Monday. And I STILL don't have my Study Guides etc!!!! I have emailed my lecturers and they are saying "Hopefully by the end of the week". Hopefully??? WTF!!!! So they are telling me that week one will be beginning and I still might not even have my study material??? The thing that I am also very annoyed about is I have Sunday, Monday & Tuesday's off work - these are the days I study. So if they don't arrive in the mail this Friday, I will more than likely end up one week behind if they are received say Wednesday next week.

Am I being unreasonable, or would you be very peeved as well?? Did they not just have a 3 month break to be preparing their course work for this term???

It annoys me so much that if they are behind schedule it is just tough titty, but if I am behind schedule I get demerits!!!!!

AARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!

[Puggie]

Did they not just have a 3 month break to be preparing their course work for this term???

Sadly probably not. I am a Uni lecturer, and although my last 'class' was in November, since then the sorts of activites going on have included:

- Done undergrad selection (MAMMOTH task)
- Met with students for mark reviews
- Done progress review
- Done late progress review
- Done end of semester subject panel meetings
- Wrapped up marks
- Done special consideration exams for myself (and covered for staff on leave)
- Marked for our overseas campus
- Assisted with summer school
- Done exemptions for new students
- Processed internal course transfers
- Reaccredited 2 courses
- Done the workload model for 7 other staff and myself
- Engaged and done contracts for about 20 sessional teaching staff members
- Assisted with the timetable for 28+ subjects for S1, winter, S2 and summer semesters
- Mentored new staff members ion all the systems, processes, regulatory requirements etc.
- Assisted with local and international orientation sessions
- Sat on various necessary admin panels such as staff review, the committee where we look at the fail rates etc.
- Signed off the results
- Attended 2 graduation ceremonies
- Met with numerous students for course advice (which subjects to choose - that sort of thing)
- Rewritten 1 subject (2 to go )
- Processed study abroad requests (including lengthy subject matching meetings... boring...)
- Enrolled 100s of students
- Late enrolled about another 30 students
- Attended mandatory university training
- Met with other education service providers to establish credit transfer agreements
- Set teaching material for next semester for our overseas campus
- Cancelled both my December and February leave as we were just too busy for me to take time off Sadly our Uni has a 'use it or lose it' policy with annual leave once you reach a certain level, and we're all so overworked we often don't have a chance to take our annual leave. The only reason I am getting a break at all this year is because I am goping on Mat. Leave (but will use 7 weeks of annual leave first)
- Got my subject materials, online sites, readings etc. ready
- Attempted to write 2 academic papers and progress and progress with research

Please don't ever think the 3 months between semesters is the quiet time

As for not having their materials ready? Are you a correspondance student? If so - yeah I'd be pretty cranky!

Good luck!

[MrsJo]

Well my Uni kicks back off on 3 March - next Monday. And I STILL don't have my Study Guides etc!!!! I have emailed my lecturers and they are saying "Hopefully by the end of the week". Hopefully??? WTF!!!! So they are telling me that week one will be beginning and I still might not even have my study material??? The thing that I am also very annoyed about is I have Sunday, Monday & Tuesday's off work - these are the days I study. So if they don't arrive in the mail this Friday, I will more than likely end up one week behind if they are received say Wednesday next week.

Am I being unreasonable, or would you be very peeved as well?? Did they not just have a 3 month break to be preparing their course work for this term???

It annoys me so much that if they are behind schedule it is just tough titty, but if I am behind schedule I get demerits!!!!!

AARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!

It is very frustrating. Hugs for you, I hope your study resources turn up soon. I know lecturers have a hard time with their workload at times, but so do students and students don't get paid. Hopefully they will understand that if you get behind they should go easy on you as a result of their delays. If you are a distance ed student I would be extremely pissed.

I am experiencing frustration at uni as well, due to them being behind. We have all our course material, I realise this is the important thing, but because we are the first group of BNurs students to be taught in Hobart it is the physical environment of the nursing school that has not been set up. They only got the building 3 weeks ago and all I can say is welcome to the ghetto, omfg. We have a hovel of a building and basically nothing else. No computer lab, no student lounge, all we have is a ghetto with new chairs. We walk across the road to TAFE to have our lectures then down to the clinical school for the library resources. They are begging us to be patient, but wow it is hard when you are paying $1000 a unit to sit in an abandoned school aka The Ghetto.

[Bronwyn]

Thank goodness you said all of that before I had to Puggie!

I work for a university and I love that students don't think that there is anything else to do when there's no teaching - but that's a whole different rant!

Back to the OP - if you're a correspondence student than they should have all the course materials to you by the start of semester so I would be getting pretty annoyed too. If you're not, then they should have them to you on Monday and they aren't late until after that!

[DazznSam]

Hmm it sounds like you go to the uni I go to... I am external student.
I am still waiting for all my prac forms, although I do have one study guide that arrived at the start of the week.
Our stuff has a habit of showing up in week 3, so that is when we count week 1. If the materials haven't arrived, we can't do the work so the week starts when we recieve it all.

The uni I go to are very disorganized and my first year and a bit of uni was messed up because of it. It wasn't the lecturers, it was the disability support officer. I have a vision disability and she didn't want to know me. She didn't want to do anything to help me because it was too hard. She told my sister that she "had never had a person with a vision problem study at that uni before". Its a load of crud really. She was just too lazy to help me out. I am finally studying but am almost 2 years behind... it really sucks!

[{Manda}]

Puggie & Bronwyn, I appreciate that the 3 months isn't a "break" as such, my wording was poorly chosen. However, the way I see it - I am a paying customer! If I did not have things to my clients on time, they would choose an alternative provider. If only logistics didn't make it so difficult, I would.

Jo, can totally see where you are coming from - I am in the first round of a new degree for my Uni as well, and OMG, do I feel like a guinea pig at the best of times!!! Unbelievable.

But yes, I am an external student, so I can't see that if they can't say that it has been mailed out yet, that I will receive it by Monday.

Dazznsam, that does suck! You should file a complaint about the disability support officer. Even if she hasn't dealt with a vision impaired person before, she could always phone her peers to get advice rather than ignore you!

Just have to keep looking at my board of my countdown of subjects to go, then I never have to deal with Universities again!!!

[{Manda}]

Hurrah! One lecturer has posted an electronic version of the study guide online. Whoot - I can study after work this afternoon now

(Why am I excited about being able to study?? )