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I teach at a two-year college, and one of my students took sixteen years to graduate. He got tenure before I did.
-------------------- "No hard feelin's and HOPpy New Year!"--Walt Kelly Hear what you're missing: ARTC podcasts! http://artcpodcast.org/ Posts: 7581 | From: Gainesville, Georgia | Registered: Jun 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Brad from Georgia: I teach at a two-year college, and one of my students took sixteen years to graduate. He got tenure before I did.
Why did it take him so long to finish? 16 years! For a two year college? What his last name? Blutarsky?
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He had no social life, no friends, outside of college. He just felt comfortable with us. Once I was his advisor and actually calculated a way to graduate him with a General Studies degree. That afternoon he changed his major so he didn't have to graduate after all, and he was with us for another five or six years after that, taking one course a semester and stringing out his college career as long as he could. He was an intelligent guy, though, and actually got Cecil to answer one of his questions in a Straight Dope book--better than I've done!
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Lordy. If I spend over a decade in college, I'll want to have seven letters after my name at the end of it, at the very least!
-------------------- Oddly enough, the island of Ireland looks remarkably like a small old man driving an old Ford Fiesta. Posts: 950 | From: Dublin | Registered: Apr 2003
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234's insane, assuming UW-W uses the same credit system I'm used to. UT's runs thusly.
50 minutes of lecture a week= 1 credit. Most classes are three, hard ones four or five, easy ones one or two. Labs are three hours lab time for one credit.
I finished with 135 in four years, taking a full load (never below 30 a year). 234, at that pace... just shy of 8 years?
-------------------- "To be or not to be! That is the question! Now, will you answer, dare, double dare, or take the Physical Challenge?" --Mark Summers as Hamlet Countdown: 177 days and counting... or less. My blog. 14 keyboards owed. Posts: 5584 | From: Ohio | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote:Last year, a letter from UW-Whitewater intended for his son came to his Waukesha home, Lechner said. Because the two share a name, the older Lechner opened it. "It said. We have no more courses to offer you. You've taken everything you can take.'"
If "everything you can take" means every class they offer, does that mean he's eligible for a degree in every major they offer? That would be kind of cool.
-------------------- "Unseasonable is an odd word to begin with. It sounds like it's describing something that it's impossible to sprinkle pepper on." -- Nonny Posts: 5483 | From: Just south of Folsom Prison, CA | Registered: Jul 2002
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You know, in a weird way, I can understand. I love learning new things (as cheesy as that sounds) and I love school. When I graduate, and if I have money, I'd love to go back for a Masters, then a PHD. Heck, I'd go to college for the rest of my life if I could, just to get all the education I can. I think, if you have the means and self-discipline to continue to go to school and learn as much as you can, why not? I'm not saying that one shouldn't contribute to society in one way or another, but if you have the ability to further your education, more power to you.
-------------------- But that's ok, darling, because I love you. And that's why you have to let me eat your brains. -- Return of the Living Dead Posts: 767 | From: Corpus Christi, TX | Registered: Mar 2004
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CD
The Red and the Green Stamps
posted
quote:Originally posted by Dondi:
quote:Originally posted by Brad from Georgia: I teach at a two-year college, and one of my students took sixteen years to graduate. He got tenure before I did.
Why did it take him so long to finish? 16 years! For a two year college? What his last name? Blutarsky?
16 years of college down the drain!
Bluto was the first person I thought of now too. Didja know he is a senator now?
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I actually graduated with 201 credits. But that was after one change of major the decision to double major in education and history. I am in a graduate program now. I wish I only had 30K in student loans.
-------------------- "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." -George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005 Posts: 382 | From: Wyoming | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
My own confession in this regard: When I went to college, I had two options for summer--either stay at the University and work at a student job in the library or return to my small North Georgia home town and work in the cotton mill. I hated the cotton mill, so it was an easy choice.
Now, back then the University was really trying to build up summer school, and some genius came up with a twofer deal. Take one course in the summer, you can take another for free. Pay for two, take four.
So I decided to take advantage of that. Every summer I'd take courses that just sounded interesting, regardless of whether I could use them or not. My academic advisor had died suddenly some time before, and I had become my own advisor, probably illicitly. The deal was that one's schedule had to be initialed by an official advisor. I'd fill out a schedule and initial it "MOS," standing for My Own Self. No one ever questioned it.
All went well until time came for me to graduate. One had to have one's transcript evaluated by this little old blue-haired lady with a cigarette glued to her lower lip and a voice like a rusty bandsaw. At that time one needed 180 credits, plus physical education, to graduate. This harridan flipped through my transcript and hit the roof. I had something like 205 credits, earned over four years, including summers. She started ripping into the summer fun courses I had taken: "Anthropology of sex? You can't use that!" (My, how she was wrong, but I digress.)
Me: I know, but I have all the credits I need to--
She: What are you doing, taking Drama 321? You're an English major!
Me: Yes, but I have all the courses--
She grilled me about three other nonessential courses, then in fury she yelped, "Who's your advisor?"
She grabbed a schedule form and snarled, "MOS. I mighta known. He lets students take ANYTHING!"
Resentfully, she stamped my transcript, and I walked out with my ticket for graduation clutched in my hand. But I couldn't help wondering--
How many other students had stumbled onto the same scam?
-------------------- "No hard feelin's and HOPpy New Year!"--Walt Kelly Hear what you're missing: ARTC podcasts! http://artcpodcast.org/ Posts: 7581 | From: Gainesville, Georgia | Registered: Jun 2000
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Brad, I'm a little confused do you mean to say that at the college you attended that it wasn't OK to take what you felt like if you had the time? At my college (graduated in '03), when I went to my advisor, he gave me a general overview of where I should be and what I still needed but never told me exactly what I had to take. I was an English major and never declared a minor, so I was free to take several courses I didn't need (a lot of psych classes, a lot of journalism almost qualified for minors in both and one semester of German). Of course, being left to my own devices like that, I ended up almost not graduating on time because I was one damn credit short, but that's another story.....
-------------------- "I shoot and crochet. I cook and mow the lawn. These things are not contradictions." -pirateslife Posts: 377 | From: Southern Illinois | Registered: Apr 2005
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It seems that the guy in the OP was a good student making reasonable grades. What I dont understand is why he didn't graduate and go on to postgraduate courses. That way he could be both a perpetual student and move on academically.
-------------------- I tried to get in touch with my inner child, but she isn't allowed to talk to strangers. Posts: 674 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Brad from Georgia: My own confession in this regard: When I went to college, I had two options for summer--either stay at the University and work at a student job in the library or return to my small North Georgia home town and work in the cotton mill. I hated the cotton mill, so it was an easy choice.
Now, back then the University was really trying to build up summer school, and some genius came up with a twofer deal. Take one course in the summer, you can take another for free. Pay for two, take four.
So I decided to take advantage of that. Every summer I'd take courses that just sounded interesting, regardless of whether I could use them or not. My academic advisor had died suddenly some time before, and I had become my own advisor, probably illicitly. The deal was that one's schedule had to be initialed by an official advisor. I'd fill out a schedule and initial it "MOS," standing for My Own Self. No one ever questioned it.
All went well until time came for me to graduate. One had to have one's transcript evaluated by this little old blue-haired lady with a cigarette glued to her lower lip and a voice like a rusty bandsaw. At that time one needed 180 credits, plus physical education, to graduate. This harridan flipped through my transcript and hit the roof. I had something like 205 credits, earned over four years, including summers. She started ripping into the summer fun courses I had taken: "Anthropology of sex? You can't use that!" (My, how she was wrong, but I digress.)
Me: I know, but I have all the credits I need to--
She: What are you doing, taking Drama 321? You're an English major!
Me: Yes, but I have all the courses--
She grilled me about three other nonessential courses, then in fury she yelped, "Who's your advisor?"
She grabbed a schedule form and snarled, "MOS. I mighta known. He lets students take ANYTHING!"
Resentfully, she stamped my transcript, and I walked out with my ticket for graduation clutched in my hand. But I couldn't help wondering--
How many other students had stumbled onto the same scam?
That has to be the best advisor story ever. I wish I could do the same as far as making up an imaginary advisor of sorts, but ODU won't allow such independence. We have to have out advisor go into the computer system and remove the advisor block electronicly. Actually, I have an appointment with my advisor tomorrow at the ungodly hour of 10 AM ( ) to have the hated block removed. She just loves to berate me with my slow progress, but all I have to do is grit my teeth and bare it. I don't care, as long as she just removes the damn block.
-------------------- But that's ok, darling, because I love you. And that's why you have to let me eat your brains. -- Return of the Living Dead Posts: 767 | From: Corpus Christi, TX | Registered: Mar 2004
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I knew someone who spent 10 years in university, without getting a degree. it went something like this:
year 1 & 2 general studies (couldn't pick a major) year 3 degree 1 year 4 degree 1 year 5 failed degree 1 (but not out of college) year 6 degree 2 year 7 degree 1 year 8 degree 2 year 9 degree 1 year 10 degree 1
at the end of his 10th year he had enough credits to get his first degree (It was a 5 year very structured course) but wanted to get his second degree finished (afaik he had 1 year to go) and graduate with both at the same time, but he died suddenly last summer. I was wondering at the time would the school give him his first degree posthumously.
-------------------- "England and America are two countries divided by a common language." - George Bernard Shaw Posts: 555 | From: Ireland | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Originally posted by piper: Brad, I'm a little confused do you mean to say that at the college you attended that it wasn't OK to take what you felt like if you had the time?.....
It was perfectly LEGAL to do so, but in my day, the University wanted to regiment everything. Advisors were supposed to make sure that students adhered to an approved program of study and diligently worked to get out of the place in by God four years. Remember, this was at a time when the women students had a 10:30 PM curfew Sunday-Thursday, although on Friday and Saturday they were generously allowed to stay out until 11:00. Males, of course, had no curfew at all. The women students could not wear slacks or shorts on campus, a catch-22 because the University physical education department required PE students to dress out in T-shirt and shorts. The solution? Women students on their way to or from PE had to wear an opaque raincoat over their togs, lest we males become too excited at the sight of bare coed limbs.
Anyway, as I say, there was no legal requirement that said we had to graduate with exactly 180 credits. The administration just assumed that advisors would crack the whip and make us follow the prescribed curriculum for our majors. Only the fact that my advisor died of a heart attack between fall and winter quarters kept me from being forced into the rut.
By the way, I exploited falling into the advisory gap in more ways than one. In my day, registration was alphabetical--always. My name falls in the last portion of the alphabet, so for the first two quarters of college, I was forever winding up with hideous schedules: Math at 6:50 AM, English at 11:00 AM, PE three times a week at noon, political science at 3:00 PM, history at 4:00 PM, chemistry at 5:00 PM, chemistry lab on Friday afternoons from 5:00-8:00 PM (that was an actual schedule of mine).
So once MOS became my advisor, I wrote myself a note on University letterhead:
quote: To Whom it May Concern:
This student is on work-study and must arrange his classes to fit his work schedule. Please allow him to register at the earliest available opportunity.
MOS
Since we had about 24,000 students at the U, no one was going to pay close attention to one guy who got to register early. From that day on, I was first in line at registration and had ideal schedules.
-------------------- "No hard feelin's and HOPpy New Year!"--Walt Kelly Hear what you're missing: ARTC podcasts! http://artcpodcast.org/ Posts: 7581 | From: Gainesville, Georgia | Registered: Jun 2000
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quote:Originally posted by strange_little_girl: It seems that the guy in the OP was a good student making reasonable grades. What I dont understand is why he didn't graduate and go on to postgraduate courses. That way he could be both a perpetual student and move on academically.
Graduate school is a lot harder. One can't party as much as one can as an undergraduate. There may also be finiancial aid issues. (I have heard of a similar case, I think in Florida, of a young man who was the beneficiary of a family trust for as long as he was an undergraduate; when he graduated, he no longer got the trust money.)
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You'd think he'd transfer to UW-Madison or Milwaukee where they have a lot more majors and classes at some point.
kitap
-------------------- "I have never in my life been more disappointed by a politician I voted for than I have been with George Bush. He is a total liberal."- overheard by me on the shuttle to the U of A game on Nov. 11th. Posts: 3878 | From: Tucson, AZ | Registered: Jan 2001
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Brad that's interesting (and hilarious). Was there a relatively decent ratio of advisors to students at your school? One of the reasons my advisor didn't do much for me was because he was one of two for the entire English department, which was one of the larger departments at the school (probably the largest outside of the education department). I can't imagine trying to coordinate classes AND get hundreds of students advised correctly. Probably why he wasn't very good at either! (Not to offend any college profs on the board I just really didn't like this guy.)
-------------------- "I shoot and crochet. I cook and mow the lawn. These things are not contradictions." -pirateslife Posts: 377 | From: Southern Illinois | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by strange_little_girl: It seems that the guy in the OP was a good student making reasonable grades. What I dont understand is why he didn't graduate and go on to postgraduate courses. That way he could be both a perpetual student and move on academically.
Graduate school is a lot harder. One can't party as much as one can as an undergraduate. There may also be finiancial aid issues. (I have heard of a similar case, I think in Florida, of a young man who was the beneficiary of a family trust for as long as he was an undergraduate; when he graduated, he no longer got the trust money.)
I don't know how applicable this is to people in departments and universities outside mine, but I made a cool list and everything, so I'm-a gonna post it anyway.
Graduate classes are almost always advanced versions of certain undergraduate classes, or special topics branching from them, so without taking the requisite undergraduate classes you generally don't have a shot in hell at keeping up with the graduate class.
Graduate classes are generally focused on self-study, far more so than undergraduate, so you really don't have the same sort of learning environment.
The set of graduate courses is always going to be much smaller than the undergraduate curriculum, with emphasis on deep understanding of specific topics rather than broad coverage of large topics. You really can't learn as much general stuff this way. Again, it's not the same sort of learning environment.
And finally, in most graduate schools, students are discouraged from taking undergraduate courses, or taking any courses that are not helpful or (in my case) absolutely necessary to secure knowledge necessary to obtain the intended degree. After all, if you are a graduate student, you should already know your subject well enough that undergraduate courses would have nothing to teach you.
If someone can't focus on your undergraduate degree long enough to manage a four-year curriculum, it is unlikely he can manage the discipline to withstand a much harsher and (depending on who you ask) much more boring graduate curriculum.
Alchemy
-------------------- Thinking about New England / missing old Japan Posts: 2603 | From: Virginia | Registered: Mar 2001
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Bah. Getting out after 3 years and that's 3 years too long. People need to go to the most opressive collges possible so they'll stop waisting time spending the better part of a decade to get a 4 year degree. There's a little something I've been reading about all these years called the real world. Can't wait to get there myself.
-------------------- "Dear Lord, please protect this rockethouse and all who dwell within..." Posts: 1093 | From: Japan | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:Originally posted by piper: Brad that's interesting (and hilarious). Was there a relatively decent ratio of advisors to students at your school? ...
No, not really. Most of the "advisors" were grad students who didn't give a damn, really. One of my roommates was a history major. His advisor had 30 or so students to advise. The advisor just gathered everyone in a classroom at the same time, handed out schedules, and put five courses up on the board. "Copy this," he said, and then he went around initialling everyone's schedule sheet, and that was it.
In English, the advisors were all faculty members. Mine was a rather distinguished scholar of Southern literature. But when he died, Lord knows what happened to all his advisees. I expect that the English Department assumed we'd all go to the secretary for reassignment to another advisor. They certainly weren't activists in getting in touch with us, and so I was able to advise myself.
It isn't hard--anyone who can read the college bulletin can do it--and I really think students should take responsibility for planning their own schedules. If they want advice, that's when they should call an advisor.
Brad "should I take Advanced Calculus or Math for Dummies, doc?" from Georgia
-------------------- "No hard feelin's and HOPpy New Year!"--Walt Kelly Hear what you're missing: ARTC podcasts! http://artcpodcast.org/ Posts: 7581 | From: Gainesville, Georgia | Registered: Jun 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Brad from Georgia: It isn't hard--anyone who can read the college bulletin can do it--and I really think students should take responsibility for planning their own schedules. If they want advice, that's when they should call an advisor.
At the UW in anthropolgy my advisor was a professor who taught in my field of interest- North American Archaeology, and as I recall they tried to match up all anthro majors like that.
Most of the students I knew decided what non-major required classes to take using the age-old "what are my friends taking" strategy. Then they whined about how they hated the classes.
kitap
-------------------- "I have never in my life been more disappointed by a politician I voted for than I have been with George Bush. He is a total liberal."- overheard by me on the shuttle to the U of A game on Nov. 11th. Posts: 3878 | From: Tucson, AZ | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
I go to Portland state here in Oregon and you need 180 credits for a bachors. So it would not be to odd to hit 230 if you change majors enough.
I gradurated with 210 credits
-------------------- Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading. G. M. Trevelyan (1876 - 1962), English Social History (1942) Posts: 1443 | From: Portland, OR | Registered: Jun 2002
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Amen. Like I said, my advisor didn't do much for me in the way of planning, so I got to take classes that I found interesting as opposed to what someone else told me I should take. And I got to take a lot of classes outside of my curriculum that interested me, so I felt like my education was more..... educational.
I feel like such a slacker though I only needed 120 credits to graduate, and that's exactly what I took. (Well, after taking a weekend course in my final semester because a class I thought was 3 credit hours only ended up being worth 2..... but the class I took was on estate planning, which was actually pretty interesting and informational, so in a way I'm glad it happened.)
-------------------- "I shoot and crochet. I cook and mow the lawn. These things are not contradictions." -pirateslife Posts: 377 | From: Southern Illinois | Registered: Apr 2005
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In the interests of full disclosure, I enrolled in the University for the September 1990 semester and took away a four-year English degree in May of 2001.
Now, I wasn't a full-time student for the whole time--frankly, the University was pretty patient to put up with me for so long. I was only a full-time student for about half the credits I needed to graduate. I flunked out a couple of times. I tried to juggle a job and a part-time courseload for a while. I went a couple of years with no college at all. I finished on a part-time schedule on the Dean's List while holding a full-time job. It's a pretty spotty record, but it all came out all right in the end.
After I took my degree, I discovered that I took it in the last year it was possible to take it. Credits at my University become invalid after ten years, and had I not graduated when I did, I would have had to take my core courseload over again.
quote:Originally posted by ASL: Bah. Getting out after 3 years and that's 3 years too long. People need to go to the most opressive collges possible so they'll stop waisting time spending the better part of a decade to get a 4 year degree. There's a little something I've been reading about all these years called the real world. Can't wait to get there myself.
Been there, didn't care for it which is why I'm taking six years to graduate
Posts: 48 | From: New Mexico | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Brad from Georgia: Remember, this was at a time when the women students had a 10:30 PM curfew Sunday-Thursday, although on Friday and Saturday they were generously allowed to stay out until 11:00. Males, of course, had no curfew at all. The women students could not wear slacks or shorts on campus, a catch-22 because the University physical education department required PE students to dress out in T-shirt and shorts. The solution? Women students on their way to or from PE had to wear an opaque raincoat over their togs, lest we males become too excited at the sight of bare coed limbs.
My first thought was, Brad, you're not that old! Then I remembered my ex-boyfriend's mom telling me about when she went to Duke University. She got married while in college, and got pregnant, and they asked her to leave. She explained that she was married, but they said it wasn't proper for a pregnant woman to be out in public like that. She is probably around 70 now - so this would have been about 50 years ago. But you're younger than she is!
Is it a Southern thing?
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quote:Originally posted by Eve MG: Is it a Southern thing?
I'd say all that most likely is the Southern culture. It was only a few years ago that the SEC relented on the student dress code at athletic events. I think even a lot of the ACC schools still followed that up until about ten years ago.
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