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01
Professor teaching students in a lecture hall.
Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.
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"You want me to switch classes mid semester? Fine!"
In every university in my country, and probably most other countries, there are mandatory subjects everyone has to take regardless of their major. My friends and I are Mass Communication majors, for reference.
About two weeks before the semester started, we registered for classes and were allowed to choose which faculty section of the mandatory subject we wanted. Since the syllabus was identical across faculties, we picked the Management faculty’s Monday 6–8PM class instead of the Mass Comm faculty’s Friday 8–10AM class because it fit our schedules better. I work part time on weekends and whenever else I can squeeze any shifts in, so the Friday morning slot was rough since I had a 2 hour travel time to head back home before work.
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And this wasn’t my first rodeo either. I’d been in mandatory classes that were in a different faculty section two or three times over the past two years that I’ve been in university, with no issues.
Then, in Week 4 of the semester, our lecturer, Mrs.N, suddenly emailed my friends and I saying she’d just found out that we supposedly weren’t allowed to be in her class and had to switch back to our own faculty’s section.
Confused, we went on a full wild goose chase between two different departments. First, the division handling mandatory subjects, then the Mass Comm faculty admin. When we finally met the admin officer, she was super condescending. She even called us selfish, kept interrupting us, refused to explain anything properly, and just kept repeating, “You can’t, you can’t, you just can’t.” when we asked her anything.
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02
University students going into building.
Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.
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She’d also ask us questions like, “Why would you choose another faculty’s class?” but every time I tried to answer, she’d cut me off mid sentence.
At that point, I realized what she was doing. She was just to wear us down until we gave up. Honestly speaking, if she had been polite, I probably would’ve relented. But she was so unnecessarily r*de that I dug my heels in out of pure spite.
Eventually, I cut in and calmly said, “Ma’am, you’ve asked us several questions without letting us answer, and you haven’t answered ours either. We’re willing to comply, but we’d like to understand why we’re being asked to switch classes in Week 4, and whether there’s another option since this schedule accommodates us better.”
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That actually made her stop cutting me off! When she regained composure, she snapped, “It messes up the end-of-semester report! You students should manage your schedules better.”
And I replied, “I thought university was supposed to accommodate students from different circumstances. I work part-time, for example.”
She huffed, and switched to this fake sweet tone and said, “Fine! Email your lecturer and see if she agrees to let you stay. But if she says no, you come back here, drop the class, and register for your own faculty’s section. Okay? Okay.”
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It's easy to become bored with your job and lose sight of what's important, but that doesn't excuse behaviors like these. Luckily, this group of students had someone by their side who was not willing to let the admin's actions slide…
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I just smiled, held back how pi**ed I was with how she was treating me and my friends, and said, “Okay, thank you,” and we all left.
So we emailed the lecturer and CCed the admin. Mrs.N replied saying she had no issue with us staying in the class. The admin, despite literally saying she’d allow it if the lecturer agreed, suddenly responded with a long explanation about why we still shouldn’t stay.
That’s when I pulled my final move: I contacted the lecturer teaching the Mass Comm section, Ms.Z.
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03
Smiling University Professor in Library.
Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.
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Ms.Z and I are close! I helped her a lot over the past two semesters since I met her during the middle of my first year, and she’s always been really supportive of me. I messaged her personally to let her know I might be joining her Friday class, and she was immediately confused because she thought I was staying in the Management class section. So I explained everything to her, and she was absolutely appalled, and told me that apparently the system auto-collects grades across all divisions regardless of the students’ majors, so it doesn’t affect the report in any way. The admin was basically lying, and apparently the only reason why she wanted me and my friends to switch classes was due to a few students from Ms.Z’s class who requested to switch to Mrs.N’s class because Ms.Z’s class was too early for them, but they requested after the third week, which wasn’t allowed anyway.
Then she told me that as the lecturer, she had to approve any new students registering for her class, and because of what happened and how it happened, she promised that she wouldn’t approve my transfer.
No approval, no class switch!
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To make it even better, she doubled down and personally told the admin that she didn’t want additional students in her class and to let us stay in our current class since it was reaching the 5th week and nearing the deadline for our first assignment, so we had a very valid reason to stay.
TL;DR
Uni admin tried to make me change class sections and I complied with all her directions she gave in order to not make the switch but despite following everything, she ultimately switched up at the end and put her foot down because she realized that her orders weren’t working out in her favour.
My class lecturer was fine with me and friends staying in the class, the lecturer for the other class section (who I’m coincidentally close with) heard my story and decided to not allow the switch to happen by refusing to sign off on it, resulting in my staying in the class section i originally registered for.
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04
Students in study hall.
Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.
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Hopefully, this will stop this admin from pulling stunts like these on other students in the future, but even if it doesn't, at least these students were smart enough not to let her words get to them. They turned to someone they knew could help, and got this matter in order before any more problems arose.
Good for them. We can all learn a lesson or two from this story if you ask us…
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