complicated simplicity

If anyone’s still interested why I’ve been bitching whole weekend long, this might prove to clear some issues.

Some background information first. This year I have to do a cross-fac module, so I opted for a business school module from Tanaka. However, the amazing phenomenon of British administration screwing up proves once again the fact of %^*)$£^/.

I returned on Wednesday to find out I had an academic briefing the next day, which was fair enough. I opened my school mailbox to find a flurry of messages sent from Imperial’s Tanaka School of Business telling me that they screwed up, or rather they pushed the blame to ICT (the group which handles college IT infrastructure) anyway, saying I was not accepted into Finance and Financial Management even though they send me an official acceptance email 3 months ago. If this was the case, I would have been stuck in a dilemma as I would not have a cross-fac module since I thought I was accepted! But being the kiasu Singapore student, I registered for 2 subjects! That, and Managerial Economics. So I thought I could still do ME…

But no… The Brits have to screw it up again. At the academic briefing on Thursday just before the end, our Director of Undergraduate Studies, tells us, "Oh, one last thing (he’s a huge Steve Jobs fan) I got bad news for those of you doing Managerial Economics and Project Management. It seems the exams for these 2 modules clashes with your Chemistry exams so you have got to change your options." Change? HELLO YOU COULD HAVE TOLD US EARLIER THAT THE EXAMS CLASHED SO WE WON’T PICK IT. To make things worse, Humanities school, Language school and most of the major departments have already hung a huge sign saying "Course Registration is closed." So where the hell are we supposed to find new modules to take?  Best thing was the department made no promises we would be able to do modules even though all the other departments are closed. In other words, I might have to forfeit 1.25 modular credits, which is over 15% of the bloody year’s grade. RIDICULOUS. I’m paying over £15000 a bloody year.

I spent the last few days running between departments, bitching to heads of departments, administrators who refused to lift a helping hand. I was desperate enough to ask for special admission into the Medicinal Chemistry course, which is a double load course of 40 hours instead of 20. After a while, I got really fed up and shot a really irate email to my DirUG which was not very courteous at all. Finally there seemed to be an end to the debacle with the Tanaka administrator telling us we could continue taking ME, but with no future elaboration from anyone. And promptly at 5pm on Friday, everyone just went home and left all of us without answers. British administration.

So we wait for a continuation on Monday with hopeful closure.

Add to that a bad Friday full of meetings and others. Grand slam of a bad week, save the Hungarian baths and babes, which is another tale for another day.