How does an accredited college honour an educational program they know nothing about?

[kokobear666]

I never thought I'd post one of these but I'm just fuming.

This is the second time my college has given me a run around to figure out a simple answer.

The first time was about a month and a half ago when I was having midterms. I needed to know where my exams were being held. I looked all over the college and on the website we usually go to for online projects and stuff, couldn't find a damn thing. So I went to student services thinking they should probably know. I ask them if they were posted anywhere and they said "well, no." And I said "okay, so, how can I find out then?" So she looks on her computer and was like "well you have to contact the program coordinator and his office is at the other location across town". So at this point I was thinking "like, really? We have exams at this location and you can't tell me where they're being held?" So the girl gives me his contact information, I email him and luckily he emailed me back right away leading me to this obscure website I hadn't even heard of to go to find the exam schedule. But whatever, I got the exam schedule right away so I kind of shrugged it off.

Then today, I made the decision to voluntarily withdraw from a course I was taking and then take it next term as a night course. I heard one of my classmates talking about this which is why I knew about night courses. So I went to student services again and he gave me a paper to withdraw myself from the course, all was fine, and he did confirm I could take a night course for next term so I could graduate. He tells me "in business administration, you can re-take your math course at night 2 days a week, 4 hours a night." And I said "I'm not in business administration, I'm in applied accounting." And he says "oh, well then hang on a sec". So he phones someone to ask about taking the night course for my program, and I'm assuming the lady told him that I would have to contact the same program coordinator at the other campus to ask him about what I could do, cause no one could answer my question.

So at this point, I'm like what the hell!? How could this campus honour a program they know absolutely nothing about?? I understand that this guy is the applied accounting coordinator, and that his office is downtown. He's a great guy and all, but shouldn't there be some consistencies with both campuses? Like shouldn't there be general information at both places, such as simple things like exam schedules?

Ugh..

[RebeccaRYoung]

It seems like typical university/college to me. I've now completed 4 university degrees and there is always confusing administrative paperwork. While it seems like there should be consistency somehow there never is. In attempts to 'streamline' the administrative side of university it always becomes more confusing.

[Ciel]

From my time as a student at Mohawk College, I took a few night courses (a couple of repeats, an elective and further courses) while going to daytime school. Continuing education was a separate department and had different program coordinators for the programs offered in CE. Night students may even have a separate student services dept. just for them and for which a fee will be shown on your payment receipt (along with any other ancillary fees and tuition fees). Good luck getting office hours with the CE instructors-it was mostly by email outside of class time (instructors usually had offsite day jobs elsewhere).

So your daytime program coordinator-unless he also teaches night school (usually work is considered pt contract and it can even involve a different union local), he would not be the go to person for night courses.

My experience was that the night course might have a different course code but as long as the description covered the same content as the day course, that was the one to take.

Exam schedules-though schools have embraced the student portal as the conduit for information, I believe each department in school still posts the exam schedule on the department bulletin board for its students to check on outside of class hours. So going to your department's office (Business studies) would have been the best place to verify the location.

Student services-they worry about the student common hour programming, your handbooks, grad etc. Exam schedules are outside of their area--considering that some student services staff may have been former students, one would think they'd know where to get the information or call the right department to ask for you.

I recall that the Registrar's office was where add/drop course forms went when changing one's schedule. When did Student Services get involved? Did SS process any payment refund for you or did you have to go to Accounting services for that?