A Sad Tale

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time there was an honor student. This honor student had to move away from home before she finished her bachelor's degree. She worked and worked to take the remainder of her classes at various colleges in her new city and completed them all with excellent grades. She also took on an internship working on an enormous project that was related to her major and future work. Upon seeing this connection, she asked her college back home to give her internship credit. The Dean approved and forms were filled out and filed. The student was very happy.

One year later, when it came time for the student to graduate, the evil Assistant Registrar told her that she was three credits short for her degree. "How can this be?" asked the student. It soon came to her attention that her internship credit from the previous year was not included in her transcript. The student told the evil AR about this, and he said he did not know what she was talking about. She went back to the others who had filled out and filed her paperwork and though they acknowledged the internship, they no longer had the files and it had never been processed.

The college people wanted to help the student once again, so they filled out the paperwork and gave it to the AR. "You must re-register and pay out-of-state tuition for this, as you are out of state," he told the student. The student fought to ensure that she would pay in-state tuition because the credit was from one year prior, when she was a resident of said state. "It must be re-approved by the Dean," the AR said. The college people tracked down the Dean and got him to re-approve it. The student called the AR for days and days, trying to get her final bill paid so she could get the credit in time for graduation, but he would not speak to her and never returned her calls or emails. When she finally got him on the phone, he told her that she needed to find a professor to give her a grade for the internship - for credit she had been awarded one year prior.

The poor honors student was very worn down and saddened by this. She approached the chairwoman of her department and asked if she would kindly give her a (good) grade. The chairwoman agreed and asked the student to resend all of her materials and then wait for her to have some free time. The poor honor student will do just this when she can find the time, since she works full-time and has many additional jobs on the side. The college has been cruel to the honor student and she will never forget it, and will never recommend that anyone she knows attend the school. She will, however, always remember the kindness of the good college people who fought on her behalf.