University rant

[Kal]

Ok, so I'm at uni atm doing a teaching degree. Sadly, due to a lack of experience and support, I failed the first placement I was on and have to retake it.
More sadly, due to the university being run by a bunch of morons, I'm now on a six-week delay for that placement and really losing hope of being able to complete the course (either way, it'll be a term later than anyone else but I could live with that). Every assignment due in March (three of them) and most of the later ones rely on my having completed the second proper placement. I'll not have done that until a term later than everyone else but can't get a response about adjusted due dates from the course leader.
The worst bit though is the delay on the placement. I'm not sure if I'll get the placement and, if I do, when. All I can get out of the uni is "We'll tell you at least the day before you have to go out" but no actual date to work from.
The really irritating bit about it is that I'm generally fairly stress-free but atm I'm having trouble sleeping and concentrating on things. If this goes badly, I'll end up not only unemployed, but also in debt to the tune of £9000 for tuition fees. Not exactly what I was intending when I started the course.
I think that sending another email to the course leader is probably the limit of what I can do, but it's so tempting to use insults and swearing in it - although inadvisable.

[wolfie]

Just so I understand you:

- The placement is part of the program
- They not only haven't placed you, but have told you you'll have zero notice when they do (they'll tell you the day before you have to go out)
- Some of your other courses depend on you having done the placement, so if the university doesn't place you in time, you'll lose marks in other courses

To me, this looks like a Charlie Foxtrot

[Kal]

That's about it except that if I don't get the assignments for other courses done, I fail the degree rather than lose marks.

[Seshat]

Write the most professionally-worded letter you can, stating the exact situation in a neat format - not unlike Wolfie's. Dot points are easy to skim and understand.

CC this not only to the course lead, but to the lecturers who running the projects which are dependant on the placement.
AND CC it to the course lead's supervisor.


As an example of the letter's outline:

State your need:

I am <blah>, I am enrolled in <thingy>, I wish to be able to complete the degree. However, I have the following problem.


Then state the problem:
* I am required to do a placement as part of the program. The course code for the placement is XYZ.
* I have not been told when my placement is to occur.
* I have multiple projects due to be completed in March.
* The projects are dependant on me having completed the placement.
* If I fail the projects, I fail the degree.


Restate the need:

I request that the due date for my projects be put back to a time after my placement, with a reasonable allowance for me to actually produce the projects after the placement's conclusion.

I also request the dates for my placement.

Thank them:

I am grateful for your attention.


Sincerely, ME.


You may wish to list the projects which are dependant on the placement, and provide all the relevant information they'll need to do this for you.

PS:
The projects which depend on the placement are
* Project 1, Course A, Course code 123.
* Project 2, Course B, Course code 456.
* Project 3.....

My student ID is BLAH, my name is BLAHBLAH.
The program I'm in is THINGY code ABC123.
The placement code is XYZ.

[Kal]

I have now had a quick response from the course leader confirming that I won't be placed to miss uni sessions and the placements will probably be after easter. No mention of the coursework dates so I think that I might as well do what I can so that if I do have to submit them, at least it's showing some work.

[Kal]

One more rather irritated update here.
My palcement has definitely been delayed until after Easter and, since the sessions at uni I attended weren't designed for my course specifically, I still have to attend some of them. Not all though, just a couple each week - which means a 100 mile round trip for a 2 hour lecture. Why the hell couldn't they have thought about this before putting on the cover lectures? This means that the other people on my course who were delayed have now lost out on these useful lectures for good, as opposed to duplicating the effort like me, so I'm not as badly off as them apparently.
The more I proceed along this course and get to know the university, the more I'm convinced that its upper management are absolute morons who know nothing about how to run the place.

[Kheldarson]

To give the uni some credit, it may be an issue of availability. When I did my teaching degree (in the US), the process was this: before the school year (or semester, I was never clear on that) my uni would ask the local schools for who was available or willing to take a teaching student on. Those teachers went on a list. The student teachers were assigned positions. Then the 300 level classes, then the 200s, to the 100s. They tried to assign all of a level before doing the next. This could cause issues if there were any hangups, which we often had as we shared the area with another uni. So my student teaching actually was delayed and had to have an exception because there weren't enough Social Studies teachers available.

[mathnerd]

On the flip side, as somebody who's been a cooperating teacher, the university *could* be at fault. I taught in an area that had several colleges and universities looking to place student teachers. There were two schools I absolutely refused to take ST's from, one of which would be fairly surprising if you didn't know the back story. Students from that particular school tended to be rich EW's who simply did not do well in my extremely poor, violent, gang and drug infested middle school. It just wasn't worth my energy to try to take those students, and most of the teachers in my school felt the same way. The other school produced students who just weren't prepared. I'd take ST's from the other two schools though.

[Kal]

I can't blame them for the lack of placement really. That's not their fault, it's a lack of available places. The bit that really annoys me was the fact that they only told me this after I'd been waiting seven weeks for a placement.
I could have got the compulsory additional placements organised and done by now if I'd known that I wasn't going to be placed. As it was, all I knew was that I would have my placement soon and not to organise anything because I could be notified of it on the very day it began.

[mathnerd]

That's the sort of disorganization that irritated me about the one university that I refused to take ST's from. They'd say one thing, then change it 12 times before the ST actually arrived, or they'd fail to disclose important information (like the exact dates I'd have the student), and other administrative clusterfucks. The few ST's I had before I put them on my never again list seemed like nice people, but they got the shit end of the stick more than a few times. They'd come with paperwork stating that they needed X, Y, and Z, but then near the end of the placement they'd get told that some mega important item hadn't been met and they'd fail their placement, even though they did a great job and did everything that they thought they had to do. Their university would schedule them for other things in the middle of their placements, making it impossible for them to be in my classroom, even after they'd completely taken over, which means they weren't doing the work they needed to do. A few times I joked around that "hey, at least you're getting experience writing sub plans!", but that's not really what this is all about.

At any rate, I hope that things get worked out and that you successfully complete your program.

[mathnerd]

On the other hand, this sort of shit is a good learning experience for dealing with the shit that teachers deal with from their district administrations and state/federal governments, so maybe it's a good thing...

[Kal]

Quite honestly, unless whatever school I end up with is actively on fire, it'll be less disorganised than this.
All of my lecturers seem baffled by the fact that I'm not placed and aren't sure what to do about the assignments. Hoping that the meeting scheduled with the course leader next week will sort this out.