The Late-Graduate Horror Story

By Alana Schindel on May 19, 2014

Students have no choice but to rely on advisors for a final ‘OK, this looks right’ before registering for courses. This reliance is built on the paranoia that if we don’t get the exact classes we need, especially as an upperclassman, we will be pushed back from graduating by at least one semester. It’s what every student dreads to hear from their advisor, and more students than you know have to deal with it.

In freshman and sophomore year it seems that every class has many sections and is offered every semester, but once students step into their core course load, things change. Classes become extremely limited in terms of student seats, sections offered, and semesters held. These restrictions can hinder personal trajectories and job opportunities and they change all the time. Students can only hope that the class they need to graduate, let’s say, spring semester, senior year, will be open when it’s time for them to register, otherwise they’re in for one ugly truth: college, much like life, is not fair.

Below is an anonymous, condensed version of a true story of a senior at Florida State University and his trials and tribulations with scheduling his final year in Tallahassee. His name has been changed.

Brandon was on the 4-year plan, and like many of us, he planned to graduate spring semester of 2014 with honors. I’ve known Brandon since middle school and our friendship was based upon scholastic competition, even back then. We would compare test grades and try to outdo each other on every graded assignment. He is a brilliant, eager student and all-around great guy.

When it came time to register for his last semester’s classes, one of the biology classes was already full. It was a class he needed not only to graduate with a degree in Exercise Science but also is a required course to continue on to med school. Brandon did not have priority seating, even as a senior, because he is not a majoring in biology, so he went to the biology advising office to speak with an advisor about what he could do to get into the class. His advisor said that the class was offered in the summer, which wouldn’t put Brandon back too far in his life trajectory, so he decided to wait and sign up for the summer class and graduate at the end of summer.

When the time came to sign up for summer classes, Brandon went online and could not find the biology class he needed, so once again, he went into advising and explained his situation. This time, he met with a different advisor, as the old advisor was no longer working in that office. He told the new advisor about the class and what the other advisor had told him, but the advisor’s response was not as he expected. He was told that the class his previous advisor said was offered in the summer was actually not offered during that semester, and that to graduate, he would have to stay yet another semester and take the class in the fall. This was news to Brandon. “I couldn’t get into the class for spring, but I didn’t sweat it because the advisor said it was offered over the summer, but NOPE!” The previous advisor who advised him not to worry because he could take the class in the summer had communicated incorrectly. If only the advisor attempted to contact the professor in an effort to place Brandon in the full class because of his graduation status, which professors will almost certainly do to help out seniors, then this entire debacle could have possibly never happened, and Brandon would have graduated on time.

This mishap ended up pushing Brandon back by eight months, after he had already been applying for jobs and to med schools and telling all possible future employers that he would be graduating at the end of spring, then having to change it to summer, then again to fall. Not only did his opportunities suffer, but also he had already found someone to take over his housing lease, papers signed, and had nowhere to live for this unexpected period of time. “It’ll cost me an additional years’ rent.” Brandon’s college funds did not cover advising mistakes, neither did the university, and now he would have to spend thousands of dollars that he didn’t have to live in Tallahassee for another two semesters for one class. Not graduating when you say you’re graduating looks bad to employers, especially when the setback takes place during your final year. Brandon knew this but there was nothing he could do. The school royally screwed his chances at the employment opportunities for which he’d been working so hard, and the school naturally refused to acknowledge the mishap and do right on Brandon in some way. He is just one of tens of thousands, right?

“There is nothing we can do,” was the reply of the new advisor.

Livid and frustrated, Brandon has begun devising what steps he could take up to his new expected graduation, but his extended time in Tallahassee, as a student at Florida State University, would be spent in slight spite.

Is that how you want to leave your alma mater? No. Is that how professors want you to leave your alma mater? No. Is it how administration wants you to leave your alma mater? They do not seem to care.

The lesson is that your trajectories and plans can be airtight, but nothing is promised. There are things we can’t control and things we can’t change, and when these things come up, we learn a lot about ourselves. We learn how to take the higher road. We learn that nobody truly cares about what happens to us but us. We learn that life is unfair, and we understand that fretting over matters out of our hands will only make things worse. So what did Brandon do? What could he do?

Brandon signed a new lease at an off-campus townhouse. He got a better paying job with more hours to fill his time, wallet, and resume. He joined a couple of organizations he didn’t have time for with his previous workload, and since many of his friends had graduated, he made new friends, hung out at places he never knew existed in Tallahassee, and let go of what should have been and embraced what is.

 

 

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