Bureaucracy 101

After 4 years at Rhodes, I am completely spoiled on how colleges and universities operate. Everything ran smoothly, and I always knew who to contact with my questions. Here absolutely NOTHING is easy to get accomplished.

Each course has a course organiser (main professor) with tutors running the tutorial sessions. Then there is a course administrator who handles all the random questions and concerns. Each course gives the students a timetable listing the dates and times of the class meetings. All of my classes are at one distinct time EXCEPT one. This class typically meets on Tuesdays, but has a few Thursday meetings listed on the timetable. One such Thursday course conflicts with another class, so I may have to miss one or the other. I would prefer not to have to do this, but may have no choice. The other course is one specific to my degree, so I'm not missing it.

I contacted the course administrator to determine what I should do. She told me to consult my timetable as the dates and times are correct and to email my professor if I need to miss. He then told me to ask her cause she made the schedule. She again says the times are correct, but she is rude and writes things in her emails such as "Tiffany, Again consult your timetable." She clearly isn't reading my emails as I have outlined my issue.

My problem is there is a class listed for Week 4, on Tuesday October 4. First of all, October 4 is a Thursday and is during week 3 of classes. So it could be Tuesday October 9 which is during Week 4. But again she refers me to the infamous timetable, so I copied and pasted her timetable into my last email to show her the issue - she hasn't replied yet.

I want to take the damn timetable and a calendar and throw them on her desk. And ask her to explain to me how October 4 is a Tuesday and during week 4. Maybe she knows something I don't. But either way I don't know if my course is supposed to meet on Oct 4 or Oct 9. I have resorted to emailing my advisor to see if he can get through to this crazy woman. I am pretty much going to her office tomorrow.

PS She is the reason I picked the Public Health Policy program over the Public Health Research program here. This class is in the PHR's dept...we unfortunately have to take it. So if you are considering doing Public Health Research at the University of Edinburgh, don't do it. You will only have to deal with a ton of idiots.