The thread for flipping shits (and tables)

Applying for official letters and transcripts today at Student Services for that graduate exchange program to Japan I've mentioned here or there today, they offer to run a graduation check.

I switched universities at the start of this year, and got all my courses over there transferred for credits in roughly equivalent courses here. I got such a buttload of credits I was pretty sure it was equivalent to two years' study and I had nothing to worry about.

I get an email back about ten minutes later, saying that I a) PHSC 101 is a course requirement I was never cross-credited for, b) need two more papers to graduate, not just the one I was expecting to do in summer school, and c) need to complete my research essay to graduate otherwise it's three more papers.

November Summer school registrations closed about a week ago; the one paper I knew I needed to do is in January Summer School. Each Summer School semester is four weeks' study so they're pretty intense, and I've already missed a week. PHSC 101 is a November Summer School course, but is so piss-easy I could (with course co-ordinator approval) probably jump in and just get it done. The prescription describes learning atomic structure, how the periodic table is laid out, mols, chemical reaction equations, and organic chemistry.

I learned half of that in high school. The kicker is, my Chemistry course from First Uni was cross-credited - to PHSC 102. This is not a degree requirement, and in fact has aforementioned degree requirement as a "recommended preparation".

I was apparently too overqualified to retroactively earn a degree requirement. Right.

Whatever. I'll go talk to the course-coordinator and he can sign off my having done this piece of shit paper.

Bike across campus. Two flights of stairs. He's apparently out of the country until the 28th. I can deal, I'll just go back to Student Admissions and they'll tell me who I should talk to up or down the food chain to get this cleared. I'm directed to the course examiner, who was across the hall from the first guy. He's pretty sure I can get enrolled, but can't vet it.

I'm given two associate professors' names, across the other "across campus". I go to the guy who's geographically closer; his door is shut, blinds are down, and his whiteboard says "appointment by email". I figure if the other guy's physically in his office I've got decent odds he's a friendlier chap, so I bike the rest of the way and discover he's out. I consider writing a note, but it's 4pm by this point so I check to see if the other guy's in. Turns out he is and there's wi-fi outside his office, so I pull up a chair and send an email asking for an appointment.

Shoot the shit on Skype with folks. Sneaking up on 5pm now and Student Admissions'll be closed by the time I hear back from him. Honestly keen to just get this sorted out today seeing as I have appointments on campus tomorrow morning, so I wait until half past five when I espy him quit typing and checking diaries.

Swallow courage, knock on the door. He is apparently unable to just give me the credit, but will happily cross-credit PHSC 102 for PHSC 101. This means I still have to sit two papers in January, one of which will be some tangential first year bullshit I won't have the time, heart, or enthusiasm for. On the bright side, the other one will be ECOL 310 (Field Ecology).

I still have to finish my research essay, and now know that I actually have to if I'm graduating. If I don't graduate, I probably can't apply for the JET program (which is for graduates only). Either that or I'd make up my last handful of credits in Semester One next year, but that will entail a metric fuckton of grilling by my parents. So fuck that.

Interestingly, both gentlemen I had to talk to today kept using male pronouns for me. My hair's got that freshly-showered bristle to it and I'm wearing jeans and a baggy grey jersey, sure, but rather odd that that was the impression I was giving off.