I’ve bitched about this multiple times to everyone I know and I’m sure I made a reference to this in the show the last couple of times but the experience I had to endure today just takes the fucking cake.
If you haven’t been privy to this information yet, let me start thusly:
I filed a FASFA application last month for financial aid for college. I filed it with a digital signature as well so that I wouldn’t have to wait for any paperwork to be processed. They sent me a signature form in the mail anyways. So I signed it and drove to the campus so that they could fax it straight to the main office. Then they hand me a verification form. I didn’t have to fill one of these out last semester but apparently its a “random check”. So I had to fill this out and supply them with a copy of my mothers tax forms. They didn’t want to take them because they were done in pencil. I had to convince them to take it because its all I had to give because my mother filed her taxes online. So then with all of my papers submitted I sit, I wait, I become greatly dissapointed when I go in and check my financial aid status every week.
My classes start tomorrow and the results of my financial aid are still pending. All the paperwork is backed up for me and about 50 other people at this campus and who knows how many more across the state. And this is all because they have their heads so far up their asses that they cant even reach the keyboard to hit the ‘approve’ button.
This problem occurred last semester but I only had to wait two weeks after the start of classes for approval.
If this is a recurring problem you think that they’d be more prepared the next time around. But today what made me realize that none of these people know what the fuck they are doing is the fact that I decided to pick up two more classes online and it took me an hour to add the classes and print out an updated schedule. This is because their Campus Connect service is the most user unfriendly service I’ve ever had to endure.
It makes me want to learn the appropriate code and then redesign the god damned thing for free just so it would be easier to use. They updated it from the version they were using last semester so that it would be more efficient. When in truth the exact opposite thing happenned. Nothing is organized in any sort of helpful fashion, add to that one of the most complicated and confusing class search features known to man. I think that the people who had trouble with the year 2000 election voting forms would find them a cake walk compared to this shit. If you want to add a class online then you need to supply the online form with the CRN number for the class. You find these through the online course catalogue. The thing that I was just bitching about. But no matter what you type into the search feilds you dont get any results whatsoever. Even if you put in the information for the class you want straight from the paper catalogue that doesnt have the damned CRN numbers. And so I walk into the office of the college library and ask the woman at the desk if she can help me and she has no god damned clue as to how the Campus Connect system even works. She’s put in that office and paid to assist the students on how to work the new system and SHE DOES NOT EVEN KNOW HOW TO WORK THE FUCKING THING. On top of that I’m guessing that the women in the main office on this campus are just paid to check their email and do their nails because they don’t offer any sort of help whatsoever. They tell you to go ask this person, or call this number, or fill out this form online. THEY OFFER NO HELP.
So after going trough four different course catalogs to find a CRN number and get the system to understand that I was registering for new classes and not dropping them, an hour goes by. And then I do what I did all last semester to print out a fresh schedule. When I do this I noticed they “revamped” this section too, making it much harder than it used to be I finally get my schedule printed and go home, still knowing not a god damned thing about the status of my financial aid. I wonder what I’m doing wasting my time here. All i want to do is go into a class room four days out of a week and learn shit. But it seems like they are trying their hardest to make this impossible. I’m sick of swimming through this sea of red-tape and bullshit.
And to make things worse I don’t why everyone is crossing wires with online versus paper forms.
And this doesn’t stop at this campus. Oh, its everywhere. If its more convenient for someone to have a paper form, they have it online instead and vice versa. And if a place is insistent on having online forms after these damn things are filled out online they demand to have a paper copy, probably because they don’t know how to view the damn things online but don’t want to go through the trouble of keeping track of paper.
Make it easier on yourself by doing your taxes online and any place that wants a copy of your taxes can’t be bothered to call the IRS themselves or try to acquire it online, they want you to provide them with paper. People want you to do things online because they’re too lazy to push paper but when it comes down to face-time, they’re fucking bereft of ideas when you’re sitting there and they dont have any paper forms to look at. I don’t get any of this bullshit.
The only positive thing about all of this is that it seems that the new technology fee they charge every semester is finally getting put to good use. Last year none of the computers in any class room or any section of the school worked. They either didn’t run office, or they didn’t run the internet browser, some wouldn’t do both. Some didn’t even start up. And my personal favorite, after the spring break they upgrade the computers. When we get back from the break the computers work worse, and when you shut down the computer for the day a big message is thrown up on the shutdown screen that says “You are running an invalid copy of Windows XP please rectify this situation.”, whoever they paid to fix the computers installed hacked copies of Windows on all the computers. Oh yeah, that’s not bad for the credibility of an institution of higher learning at all.
Well this year things have improved because they have upgraded to better computers, with legit copies of Windows as far as I can tell, the printers work, MS Office works, the internet runs just fine. And they’ve finally sprung for wi-fi. The only thing I see that could prove to be a problem is the fact that you have to log in to a computer with your Campus Connect ID. And when it does this it either calls you a liar and says your user does not exist, or it takes you to a full screen version of the Campus Connect system and the ‘esc’, ‘alt’, and ‘ctrl’ keys are disabled so that you can’t minimize it and type your paper. As it stands I’m not taking the chance and I fully intend on taking this laptop to all my classes.
With this rant for the most part complete I feel somewhat better. As always I’m Eldon K.R. saying I don’t have cancer so I’m not stopping.
