Down with the SYSTEM!!!
Wednesday, June 6
I'm sick as shit with this damn bureaucracy we have. Specifically the one we have in UPD. Forms, slips, stamps, clearances, countersigning, student numbers, class codes, and all that shit with unreadable strings of characters. I've finally finished enrolling for the 1st sem, but there's still one subject I'm thinking of taking, meaning that I would have to revisit hell to get some tiny numbers on this small shit of paper, we call the Form 5. I would have to beg some professor to accept me as another addition to an already overcrowded class, then find the needle in the haystack my adviser is, then submit the form to the dean's office for them to apply a few drops of ink in the form of the dean's name. F*ck that.
I almost went ballistic this afternoon on my adviser, after he refused to sign my forms without first handing out my grades. Ok, it may seem that it's obviously reasonable for a student to first present his records before he can take on more advanced subjects, but I've already submitted the prerequisite grades for those higher courses, and the ones that I haven't submitted are only those under GE (General Education), so I begged to my adviser to just sign the friggin sheet and I'll take care of those grades first thing in the morning the day after, so as to make it before the cutoff time for payments. But he insisted, so I had no choice but to zoom around the campus as fast as humanly possible to get a copy of my grades. Add to that, the fact that I partly blame the advisers for my failure to enlist for another subject the day before.
But I guess, that I've been irrational, and my adviser isn't really to blame for my misfortunes. He is, after all, just another overqualified but seriously underpaid professor in this country's university system. The problem really is with the system.
First off, enrolling still feels like we're living in the dark ages, a superstitious time bereft of the comforts of advanced technology. Yes, we already have the CRS, but most of the transactions in the university is still done by paperwork, which means that rather than augment and optimize the process, the CRS becomes an unnatural mole strapped to the spine of the University's backbone. It does nothing to combat long gruesome lines, humid overcrowded enlistment rooms, and sore feet swollen from all that walking from one building to the next.
Then there's the RGEP, the Revised General Education Program, which just says that we students are free to choose whatever GE subjects we take, as long as the subjects we choose fall under the categories set by the curriculum of our course. It may seem blissful to have total control of your schedule, and be free from the clutches of block schedules, but believe me it's a nightmare if done by paperwork. The only time you'll be to enjoy the full benefits of this program is in your freshman and graduating years, when you're the top priority in the CRS, thus saving you from the torment of manual enlistment.
But then, who am I kidding, they won't change the system just because some whiner blogged about it. Nor will they improve it after some rallies and demonstrations, well, maybe they will, after months of meetings and debates on interpretations of the University rules and regulations. And in the end, they'll probably end up drafting something that would work out completely against the students, much like the TOFI fiasco last year. *sigh*
Labels: rants
thrown by A.Paul @ 22:25,
