The Degree That Never Ends
Feb. 6th, 2022 01:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
So, I was happily—if you can judge by the frequency of 'LOL'—typing away on the ol' Larry Niven chat this morning when the phone rings. I hate it, with a passion born of experience and borne by continued experiences, when the phone rings. The damn thing never rings when I'm just slobbing around the house without even the energy to raise the intent of just clicking on a button and playing Freecell. It only ever rings when I'm doing something else, something that is 99% more likely to be more interesting than talking to whoever's on the other end calling me.
"FUCK!" I yelled at it. "GODDAMN FUCKING NIGGER ARSEWIPE CUNTS RINGING ME UP! WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?! USELESS FUCKING KAFFIR BASTARDS! Oh, it's a real number." And it was. Bullshit numbers are easy to spot. If someone from Thailand is calling me, chances are it's a bullshit call. If someone from England is calling me, it can only be one of three people and I know their numbers. If the USA is calling but I don't recognise the number, it's bullshit. Numbers ostensibly from Melbourne but where they start with 613 8 blah blah blah are fairly likely to be bullshit. Text messages talking about my packages being held up by Customs are bullshit. But this one was from Gippsland.
It was a nice lady called Debbie from ederation University, who was calling to answer some questions I had had about my degree. I had been told that it was a requirement to have at least two third-year (ie, 3000-3999 course codes) courses before I could graduate. So I was just checking on that. I had also made an enquiry about what I should do for my minor now that Federation University was getting rid of International Studies.
But of course what I actually said was: "They've got you working on a Sunday?"
"Yeah. We're just trying to get through an enormous backlog of enquiries."
"I'm not surprised you have them with all these changes. I'm certainly not the only one who's concerned about graduating."
"That's what we're trying to answer. Anyway, to answer your first question, yes there is a requirement to have two 3000-code courses to complete your major. You have three, so there's no worries there."
"And I only need eight courses to graduate, right?"
"No, you need twenty-five."
Twenty-five?
"twenty-five?" I said.
"Yes. You need eight units for your major, four for your minor, and thirteen electives, with a maximum of ten first-year, 1000-code, courses."
"Good God&…"
"So, if you complete two courses this semester, and keep that up for each semester, you'll graduate at the end of 2023."
"What?"
"You need one more course for your minor, and five electives, so you would have one more course to do in semester two of 2023, so —"
"Yeah, I get it. I was just a bit surprised. You can take ten years to complete your degree —"
"Yes."
"— but if you did one course per semester you'd only have twenty units by the end of your ten years. Seems a bit unfair. Ah, well, I tried doing three courses once and nearly exploded, so I'll stay with it. 2023, eh? Thanks for the update."
"No problem. Is there anything else?"
"No,no, that's everything. I can do the re-enrolments myself if I need to drop a course this semester, then pick up the actual course to complete my minor if they're offering it in Semester 2."
"I'll send you a revised copy of your student plan so you can better know which courses you need to do to guarantee completion of your minor."
"Thank you. Have a good Sunday."
"'Bye."
So, I stood there reeling for a bit. fucking hell. I thought I was close to graduating but I'm nowhere near there. Okay, the rational outlook is that I'm closer to graduating than I was in 2017 when I started this whole thing, but just then it looked like there was narrow tunnel slowly squeezing shut to smother me before I got anywhere with this stupid, endless degree.
Okay, so I'm really only doing it for fun. Nothing's really riding on it. I don't need it for a job or anything. But it would be nice to get it, and I was looking forward to graduating while I was still 60, and not 61. Threescore years and one? What is that?
The plus is I can pick electives from anywhere at Fed Uni, provided I have the prerequisites. I see a future of some bullshit marketing course, maybe another IT course, maybe some nursing. They might let me take my Duolingo scores and limp through to a pass in Irish or something. I don't know. I briefly felt like chucking the whole thing and writing it off to experince, but I've come too far now. Maybe I should enrol in five subjects next semester? Ha! I hear they don't have asylums anymore, but they would have to medicate me seriously if I did that.
So there it is. 2023. I suppose it's not too far away if you compare it to, say, 1962. So I'll do that.