Since I'm on the way out, it's only right that I take a bit of time to reflect on my experience at Bradley as a whole (in other words, criticize the school).
I'll be fair and start by taking my habits and personality into account: I'm anti-social pretty much all of the time. That being said, it wouldn't be fair of me to criticize the availability or quality of "extra-curriculars" on campus. I'm sure they're lovely, I'm just not interested. The only non-academic activity I've participated in is band. And, after my 8 semesters of experience in that area at Bradley, I have one major conclusion: the music department deserves more money. From who or where, I have no idea, but after watching countless other buildings being built on campus, often to benefit Bradley athletics in some way, I am appalled by the sub-par facilities that the music department is stuck with (without much complaining either). Maybe I'm just a disgruntled percussionist who's tired of being shoved in the back of the stage without enough space to move in, but I wish Bradley University could do better. The music program itself is great, but the facilities hold it back from being a selling point for prospective students.
Since we've already established that money is a sensitive subject for me, I'll go ahead and point out that Bradley's tuition isn't a hell of a great deal financially (just in case you're lucky enough to be oblivious to that fact). I'm sure all colleges are expensive, but when I see those numbers roll around each semester and try to justify them with the quality of education I'm receiving, I usually fail. Don't get me wrong, I've had some totally awesome teachers at Bradley ("some" being a generous term... half a dozen, maybe?) for whom I am eternally grateful, but I've had far more unsatisfactory experiences than not. I'm not sure I can even recap all of the appalling classroom experiences I've sat through, but just a few off the top of my head:
1. An English teacher who cancelled classes a good 60% of the time. On evaluation day (my favorite!), right after I listed all of my grievances frantically on that piece of paper, she returned to the room to inform us that our evaluations didn't matter because she wouldn't be returning to Bradley. Oh, and that she was sick so often over the course of the semester because it "turns out" she was pregnant. And didn't know. Classy.
2. Another English composition teacher who used class times as nothing more than a soap box for her political opinions (another pet peeve of mine). She often forgot we even had class and one of us would need to go fetch her from her office.
3. A teacher I had the pleasure of experiencing more than one semester. She never knew what was due when and couldn't create a PowerPoint slide without a spelling error to save her soul. After creating a fairly substantial final project, we discussed my grade in her office: I got a B. Everything was great!...except a word I had spelled wrong over 10 times throughout the project. We argued about the spelling of that word for 15 minutes. She was wrong. She didn't adjust my grade accordingly, she just told me I had a bad attitude instead.
4. An art teacher that ran a class without ever even creating a syllabus. There was no grading scale, list of projects, class requirements...nothing. Some nights there was no lecture... because she'd forgotten to bring her laptop from home. There was no evaluation handed out at the end... so there did end up being some substantial tattling on my part to some highly-paid folks on campus.
Fortunately, the teachers at Bradley have not been the most frustrating part. I'm not sure if everyone has had similar experiences, but I've had some fairly legitimate anxiety attacks caused by the administrative folks at Bradley not having their shit together. The most recent:
1. Fall 2011. I receive an email a few weeks after registration for Spring semester that my spring classes will be dropped due to a hold on my account. Huh? But I already registered?...I'm confused. I was given a phone number to the controllers office and proceeded to converse with three of the RUDEST old women present on this earth. (side note: if you don't like kids/students and don't want to be polite to them, don't work at a SCHOOL.) They informed me that my hold was tuition related. I assured them that my tuition had been paid (in cash, in full, thanks). They referenced unpaid course fees. I checked it out online: TWO of my IM courses had subtracted and then added and then subtracted and then added and then subtracted and then added course fees since tuition had been due/paid. So I owed like $200 that no one had informed me of at any point. Classy.
2. This week's disaster. After somehow becoming my senior project group's frontman at the print shop and jumping through all the hoops to get that done properly, I was excited to relax. My best friend came over Wednesday morning and I started the emptying-of-kitchen-cupboards season by making us pancakes. Halfway through the pancakes I checked my phone and read this email:
I won't detail my emotional and physiological responses. There were quite a few "I need to go somewhere"s and "I need to talk to someone"s blurted out. Coached by my friend, I printed out my current DARS and somehow managed to tear my apartment in half and find my DARS from fall advising. I marched in to Martha's office, and then proceeded to cry in this nice stranger's office while she assured me that there had been some type of IT error.
Long story short, I'm glad I pump as much money as I do into Bradley so that I can have teachers who don't show up to class and "errors" that trigger physical and emotional instability. Thanks for everything, Bradley.
No comments:
Post a Comment