Okay... so this is more of a vent. Long time lurker of both the poker and off topic forums just for the fun of it. But i needed somewhere to vent so why not here. I go to a university about to get a degree in music education. I have been student teaching this semester. Have done everything I am required to do and am set to graduate on Saturday. Was told by my University Supervisor, my academic consultant, my academic advisor and the assistant dean of the school of music that I have everything done and am ready to graduate. One of the requirements for student teaching is to take a national exam for educators called the PRAXIS II. We were told that we weren't required to pass the exam, but were required to take it while student teaching and were encouraged to take it again if we did not pass it the first time after student teaching was over. I went to register for the exam around February 14th ( i remember because it was valentines day) and saw that they offered the exam two more days during the semester once in mid march, and then on April 26th. When I tried to register for the test in mid march, it told me that it was past the registration deadline (apparently a month in advance is not early enough). And they would charge me a $60 late registration fee. So I thought about taking the test on April 26th to avoid the fee. Before I registered for that exam though, I waited until my supervisor came to observe me at school again and while she was there I asked her if it would be okay to take the test in late April since it was close to the end of the semester. She told me that it would be fine because the scores didn't have to be in yet just so long as I had taken the test. She came and observed me for the last time last week, we got all the final paperwork taken care of and she told me everything was good to go. Fast forward to today and I receive this email:


Dear Student,
The Office of Field Experience has received the current list of PRAXIS II scores. Unfortunately your scores are not listed. This particular list does not include scores for those of you who took the test in April. If you took the test before April and you have received your scores, please make a good copy of them for Karen. If you took Praxis II in April of 2008, please bring or send a copy of your scores to Karen as soon as you receive them. We will need your scores before we can submit your student teaching grade.

Thank you
Assistant Dean

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Basically they said because the scores are not back yet, i have to take an incomplete in the class until the scores arrive. Which isn't that big of deal except for the fact that I now have to go to a job interview with no official degree and an incomplete on my transcript! I am absolutely livid about this. I checked my student handbooks and it is not said anywhere that the scores must be in the hands of the university before your grade can be given. There is one paragraph online that says that student teachers are required to take the praxis II and the grades be submitted to the University. Which when you register for the exam it asks you where you want your grades sent and you can tell it the university you want the scores sent to. Which to my understanding was the act of submitting the grades to the university. I feel completely cheated because not only do i feel misinformed by the university about the requirement, but also that I was told by my University Supervisor, who is basically my "boss" of student teaching.. the person who evaluates me and makes sure that everything gets done, that it would be fine to take the test in April. I will still walk on Saturday... i am just pissed that it will delay my diploma and after double and triple checking and being told everything was good to go this BS pops up two days before graduation.

and i wouldn't even feel that bad about this...if it was the first time it's happened but NOOOOOOOOOO....this has been a habit:

Sophomore year: required class that only met in the spring, was told that I would be fine to take all of my classes the next year and could wait until the next year to take this class. Turns out this class was a pre-requisite for not 1, but 2 of the classes I needed the following year.

Junior Year: The school failed to tell literally the entire class of Conducting 1 students that they had to be admitted to the school of education before they could take conducting 2... literally 20 of us were running across campus the last day before exams at Christmas to get everything signed and turned in.

Senior Year: after doing a graduation check in which I was told everything was completed and that I would be able to student teach, they called me the first day of student teaching last semester to tell me that I hadn't passed something I had to pass and that I couldn't student teach until it was done. They could've told me this at any point during the summer so I could've gotten it taken care of during the summer, instead they tell me the day I am supposed to start student teaching, which now there was no way to make it up and I had to delay student teaching by a semester.


GRRRRRRRRR.......... sorry.. just felt like venting...

Im not gonna read that. Someone post cliff notes.

Cliff notes: Exam I had to take, told by supervisor that it was okay to take it in april instead of earlier. Take it in April, turns out that they had to have scores from it before end of semester, so now I have to take an incomplete until the scores come in and now I have to go to a job interview without my official degree and an incomplete on my record and it was not my fault! . . . better? haha

Tough break.

What year does your university cover paragraphs?

I skipped the class on paragraphs to play poker... whoops...

Seriously though, I am surprised the post even made sense considering how pissed I was when I typed it out...

i would have ready their catalog front to cover to make sure I would not have any set backs in getting my degree... maybe a little research instead of people telling you what you should do... just my two cents...

really? did you go to college? if so, did you read your student catalog from front to back to make sure there weren't any weird or obscure rules or requirements that might keep you from graduating? it seems to me like the one person you should trust to let you know exactly what you should be doing in your specific case in order to graduate would be the university supervisor. since, you know, its his job.



also, who the fuck reads books in college?

It's because the dumbass people that work there aren't the ones that graduated.

I read what i had to do for my major and graduated on time... advisors and counselors have hundreds if not thousands of students coming to them for advice, i wouldn't expect them to know everything off the top of their head...

So you're ready to graduate and you still haven't learned that the point of college is teach you that in all facets of society (excluding the wealthiest 1%) some nameless, faceless, pencil pushing, bureaucratic, triple stamping a double stamp, assclown controls your fate?




I learned that lesson sophomore year.

In his defense dates for testing and transfer of results aren't likely in the catalog. Furthermore, some program requirement sections are so convoluted in thier writing that they would make a tax lawyer weep like a little girl.

"Was told by my University Supervisor, my academic consultant, my academic advisor and the assistant dean of the school of music that I have everything done and am ready to graduate."
if that's true, I really don't see why one should have to research every detail and facet of the particular major searching for minor details that may hinder graduation since those people are there to do just that: notify students of what is required of them in each individual situation. if a university supervisor, academic consultant, or an academic adviser cannot be taken on their word what is required for the student, then they shouldn't exactly have any of those titles, should they.


but I do find it an odd situation to be in to have to actually ask people whether or not you've done everything you need to do to graduate.

yea college advisers dont care about you. and universities are happy to have you come back and pay for another semester. thats why i dropped out of college and moved to the mountainous Andalusia region of southern Spain for a few years. farmed grain for a meager living while writing revolutionary pamphlets. got my education in the streets you could say.

Do you have to take transcripts to job interviews? I never heard of that, but maybe it's a new thing. At any rate, it's easy enough to say "Yeah, some paperwork got delayed for a test I took, so it shows up as an incomplete. As you can see, the rest of my grades were ________ , and the ones listed as incomplete are no exception." No big deal.

If you go to a job interview upset over this, that may affect your results.

I understand that there are some things that I have to do for myself. The academic advising/university supervisor, their only role is to help students make sure they have what they need or at the very least they will check off the check sheets. The issue I have here is that I specifically asked my supervisor about the issue. It would be a completely different story and I would be fine taking the blame had I not checked or thought about the problem and just went ahead and did it without consulting anyone. But I did that specifically about this issue and feel like I should be able to trust what my university supervisor says.

Also, I did check the Student Teaching Handbook and the exam is not referenced in it at all. The Student Teaching handbook is updated yearly and is supposed to be the guide to making sure we complete student teaching. The exam is only referenced on the student teaching webpage for the university, which we were told contained the same information that was in the handbook. So I consulted the handbook first, and when I didn't see anything about it I then asked me University Supervisor and trusted what she said.. apparently that was a mistake.

As far as transcripts go, because I am a first year teacher I cannot necessarily be judged on experience because I don't really have a whole lot yet. Transcripts are often used for first year teachers to judge content knowledge. Also, because the process for actually becoming a licensed teacher takes a couple of months and cannot begin until the degree is finished, (state takes forever to process the paperwork) I will have to interview for jobs without a teaching license and the transcript is a sort of unofficial way to prove that I will be licensed to teach whenever the paperwork goes through.

The plan is to just explain the issue during the interview, but the problem that I have is that most school systems request your transcripts up front. This means that they will see my transcript before deciding if I even get to interview for the position. Who's the principal going to want to interview, the person with slightly worse grades but actually completed their degree which qualifies them to teach, or the person who has better grades but has an incomplete and isn't qualified to teach yet? If you get what i'm saying. . .

"I read what i had to do for my major and graduated on time... advisors and counselors have hundreds if not thousands of students coming to them for advice, i wouldn't expect them to know everything off the top of their head..." My university supervisor is only in charge of student teachers, and she only has 10 of them she has to take care of.

lol at thinking the Praxis isn't important to becoming a teacher.

That's like trying to get into undergrad without an SAT or ACT score.

Yeah.




Plus, it's important to the Klingons.