Rant: Your Copies Are Not Ready

Considering today is the 12th of October, that means classes at the University of Ottawa have been in session for just over a month, leaving plenty of time for people to get organized. So you can certainly understand my annoyance when the people who haven't managed to get their shit together yet happen to be professors.

One class in particular has been - for lack of a better descriptor - a disaster so far, and things are not looking up. Here's a shortlist of what I (and many more) have had to put up with, just in the first month.

1) In one short month we've covered about half of the material we were supposed to cover, up to date and the presentation has been mildly comprehensible, at best.

2) The professor has canceled class, at the last minute, despite knowing she was going to be out of commission days in advance.

3) The Professor doesn't seem to enjoy questions, unless it happens to be a question that she can easily run off on a tangent with. One such case ran on for nearly 10 minutes until someone plainly asked if the question had anything to do with what we had to learn - which it didn't - and asked to get back on subject, since we were already well behind. 

4) During the first class we were informed of course packs that we would have to go buy with the required readings for the class. Very par for the course, no problem there. That was September 8th. When did the course packs first become available? Nearly a month later on October 4th.

5) These magic course packs of course weren't actually ready. They consisted of solely the first section (of which there are three) of the course. And when I went to pick up my 'prepared' copy, despite being one of first dozen, I had to wait 20 minutes - because they had to make more.

Tomorrow, Wednesday the 13th was supposed to be our first mid-term exam. Note how I said was. I woke up Tuesday morning and checked my university email to find the following particular gem:

"I've just been advised that your exams will not be printed in time for tomorrow, therefore your exam will be next Monday instead." 

Well that's just fucking fantastic, seriously.

It's bad enough our course packs were nearly a month late but now our first exam is delayed because of, what I assume, is the same fuck up - using the same place to print the exams, as you did with the course packs.

I'm not sure if the Professor is in cahoots with the owner of this place but I know for a fact that if my course packs were nearly a month overdue for printing, that I sure as shit wouldn't go back to get anything else printed there in the future.

 

So my suggestion to this Prof is: In the future, use a reliable printing service with a good track record. I'm pretty sure there's one available in the University itself, and there just happens to be about a dozen within walking distance around the campus. Professors get their course packs done there for a reason - because it's what they do and they know what they're doing.  

This class in particular is a first year course, containing a blend of university nubiles and veterans looking for another three credit write-off. For the noobs, news of a canceled exam usually equates to good news and a happy dance.

For veteran students and especially students in their last year, a canceled exam is more akin to cause a headache than a happy dance. 

Wasted time studying aside, you have to move that canceled exam ahead into your schedule, which can often leave you with a result that includes: 2 Mid-terms and a Quiz on the same day that a major Written Assignment is also due.

Let get this fucking party started.