Spring 2017
Me: *clicks on link in Student Resources area titled "Final Exam Portfolio*
TWU: "This is super important."
Me: "Whoa, okay, better read everything about it."
TWU: "Don't worry about the FEP because you can't take it anyway until you've got 24 credit hours under your belt, which won't happen until Summer 2018."
Me: "Okay, so judging by the utter lack of documentation, more will be revealed at the right time."
TWU: "By the way, if you fail this, you can't graduate."
Me: "Eep!" *downloads and reads everything three times, marks calendar*
Spring 2018
Me: "Okay, so the spring semester of my final year just started, so I'll look to see for updates about the FEP."
TWU: "Nah, nothing different. The spring semester application deadline is February 7."
Me: "Okay, so I'll wait until after the spring deadline to find the summer deadline."
TWU: "We don't do it in summer, you have to wait until your fall semester."
Me: "That's my final semester, what if I fail it?"
TWU: "No prob, just take it over again the following
semester."Me: "..."
TWU: "Oh and you have to be an enrolled student to be eligible."
Me: "Soooo...if I have taken all the classes I can take before graduation, then I just pay you more money to take an extra class so I can be eligible for this thing you say I need to graduate?"
TWU: "Also, if you fail it twice, you're forever barred from graduating from the program. It's pass/fail."
Me: *begins process of checking once a week for updates, reads what little documentation there is five more times*
February: No change
March: No change
April: No change
May: No change
June: No change
July: No change
August: No change
Me: "Okay, so it's August 13 and the fall term is gonna start in a week, so I'm sure there's information up about this."
TWU: "Spring application deadline is February 7."
Me: "It's fall."
TWU: *shrugs*
Me: "Okay, now the Fall term has started, so I'm sure there's info."
TWU: "Spring application deadline is February 7."
Me: *sighs, gets busy working ass off for practicum*
Me: "Whoa, it's September 21, I better check to see if they updated anything."
TWU: "Fall semester application deadline was September 19."
Me: "What."
TWU: "We announced it on the 6th."
Me: "You don't set the fall date for eight months, then tell us two weeks before the deadline?"
TWU: *shrugs*
Me: "Are you shitting me?"
TWU: "Hey it's your fault. You should have been keeping an eye on things."
Me: *rages for a while, sends email to advisor*
Adviser: "Did you apply to graduate?"
Me: "Yeah, a month and a half ago."
Advisor: "Then you're automatically enrolled in the FEP, you don't have to apply separately."
Me: "...sooooo they didn't mention this because...?"
TWU: *shrugs*
Me: *sighs, goes back to obsessively looking for information and re-reading all the documentation*
TWU: "Okay, so we opened up the submission site and you have two weeks to submit it."
Me: "Wait, what?"
TWU: "Yeah, you should have been working on this since your first semester."
Me: "..."
TWU: "No way you'll finish now. Sucks to be you."
Me: "So where is the documentation for this?"
TWU: "Same place it always is. Your advisor will tell you about it and your instructors will make recommendations for it."
Me: *side-eyes advisor*
Advisor: "Who are you again?"
Me: *side-eyes instructors*
Instructors: "Don't look at us, half of us don't even respond to emails and the other half won't respond to discussion board questions."
Me: "Maybe there's more information elsewhere." *googles*
Blog: "I'm a TWU grad and I was involved in 435764314 student organizations and was the president of 8364239 of them and you're crazy if you think you can do this in two weeks hahaha you should be more motivated like me."
Me: "That reminds me, I have noticed the student organization of the program I'm in says its goal is to help us succeed, so why didn't they provide more accurate and timely information?"
GLISA: "Na brah, we are waaaay too busy sending mass emails that only apply to a small percentage of students who can access the main campus."
Me: "You know this is an online-only program, right?"
GLISA: "Hey, we just put together a graduation workshop, everyone should come, it's tomorrow night."
Me: *deletes email*
Classmates in other states: *deletes email harder*
Me: "Has it occurred to any of you that in an online-only program with a lot of distance students, providing timely information to students is even more crucial?"
TWU: "You should ask for the info. You can't expect us to do everything for you. Want us to hold your hand? You're an adult, suck it up."
Me: "We. Don't. Know. To. Ask. The. Question. If. You. Don't. Even. Give. Us. Any. Indication. That. A. Question. Exists.
TWU: *shrugs*
Me: "Okay, I can do this. I just have to stop existing for anything else."
Me: "Okay, so I have no idea what to do. The instructions document doesn't say anything about what it's supposed to be beyond a Word document. I know, I'll do the only useful thing the document says and contact my advisor who has never at any time been unhelpful."
Me: "Hey advisor, I have a thousand questions about basic formatting and structure that were not in the instructions documentation, Q&A documentation, rubric documentation, or announcements that were scant until two days ago."
Advisor: "Wow, that'a a lot of questions."
Me: "Yeah, sorry, but I don't even know what style it's supposed to be in. One person said CMoS, the other said MLA."
Advisor: "Definitely CMoS."
Me: "I wonder why that information isn't included."
TWU: *pokes dead thing with stick*
Me: "I still don't know what this is even supposed to look like. Fortunately, I found someone who helpfully had one half of theirs online in a forgotten pdf and they graduated, so this will be my guide."
Me: *works furiously, hits roadblock*
Me: "Hey advisor, are you sure that everything has to be in a single Word document? I can't like, upload multiple documents since embedding an Excel spreadsheet is fraught with peril and it's hard to paste intangibles into Word?"
Advisor: "Yes, definitely put everything in a single Word document.
Me: "Single document?"
Adviser: "Siiiiingle dooooocuuuuumeeeeeent."
Me: "Okay, I inexplicably trust your advice."
Me: *works furiously, creates masterpiece in one document that took days to simply organize and format*
Me: "Okay, deep breath, time to submit this thing and pray I don't fail and lose all the work I did towards graduating in December."
Me: *opens Blackboard*
TWU: "You need to submit eight separate documents in five different locations."
Me: *burns everything*