Never trust a university employee or a government employee

I guess I'm slow to learn and quick to forget, because today I violated one of the basic rules of being an american; Never trust a government employee or university employee. If you have more faith than I do in either of the many people that fall under this umbrella, then I can only advise you to trust, but verify.

A little background on my situation... I messed up a litte over a year ago. I took Marketing 300 and I blew the class off, because after all, it's a business class. Well, time came for grades to be distributed and I, Mr. "no way am I working for this grade", ended up with a D in the class. I blame noone else for the disaster that has been my college education, and this class is no exception. I earned a D through skipping certain classes, and not studying like I should have. My fault.

With that being said, however, I expected that I would have to retake the course to get a "C" or better grade. This is the rule nowadays because the class counts toward my business administration minor. However, there was hope. My advisor told me that sometimes they can "grandfather" some grades in. He said that because I started college with a certain set of rules in place, maybe the new rule of C's or better wouldn't apply to me.

Now, by this time it's the first summer session of classes '04, and I'm already registered for Marketing 300, just to be safe. Being one for doing as little work as is required this late in my college career, I ventured into Nethken to find someone who could give me a straight answer about this question of "grandfathering". I ended up in the office of Dr. Hale. I sat patiently while he talked on the phone to someone in the business office, and then flipped through the school catalog that I entered college with and showed me where it said I wasn't required to have a "C" grade, or better. So, there I had my answer. I went and dropped the course that same day.

So, today, the last day of drop/add at school, and the beginning of my last quarter of college I go to make sure that I'm on schedule to graduate (once again because Mike advised me to do so... he seems to be the exception to the rule...he steers me in the right direction). I went to see the lady who approves students for graduation at COES, Joyce Bryan. She makes the same phone calls that Dr. Hale made, I assume. This time, however, I get a big fat no. "You're gonna have to retake Marketing 300 to graduate."

Are you kidding me!? I was in the class! I could've taken it this summer when I had NOTHING TO DO! Your man in nethken told me that I wouldn't have to take this class, and now I have to take it at 8 in the morning!? I'm a functional illiterate until 9:59! So... wait, wait, wait... not only do you expect me to take a 400 level CSC elective (hard course) because YOU let me skip CSC 100 (crayola time), but you want me to take an extra course now in addition to Data Mining for Bioinformatics, Physics 202, and Discrete Math, after you told me I wouldn't have to!?

With all that out of my system, the good news is that I WILL be able to graduate this quarter, and all I have to do is make C's or better in each class. I'll just have to do it taking three hard classes, and a business class that is full of what I call "busy work".