The Facade of Academia: How to piss your professors off to the point where they want to punish you in a moderately serious manner.
So I bet many of you have been wondering where I've been. In an encapsulated shell trying to avoid all things pharmacy, that's where. I am so annoyed right now I literally want to chuck the TV remote through my car's windshield so it would hurt as much as me. We will start during Thursday of finals week.
***tv picture goes fuzzy signifying flashback sequence* **
So I'm sitting there about to check my email. It's finals week, and I'm about
dead, running on "E". I got a 65 on my nephrology patho test. Yippee. That means I have to remediate it. They don't do this in any other semester of patho except the last. I have no idea why. Double yippee. I wasn't expecting greatness, I studied all of about 1 hour for it on 7 hours of sleep in 72 hours. Then it hit me. Oops. I got under a 70 on my women's health section, too. Crap, I completely forgot to remediate it. The funny part is that the P-2s took that section in the fall (they rearranged the order the teach stuff) and didn't have to remediate a test if the flunked it. Interesting, no? Anyway, I was moving to a new place that week and I didn't have time for school at all, so it doesn't surprise me I did bad on the test or missed the email. Life happens. I screwed up and I accept it. I assume they forgot about it because they never tried to contact me about. (Turns out it was in a mass email I found later announcing the test was posted....hidden at the end of a paragraph...)
Anyway, I go talk to the nephrology professor, set up a test retake and she goes, "Oh, and Dr. Makela needs to see you." This is the guy that oversees patho. I knew what it was for. So I go in to talk to him. He made me wait 45 minutes while he talked on his cell phone to some....guy. Then he comes out and leads me into the conference room. Inside are two other professors, one who I think wants me dead, and the other I don't know so much. They proceed to interrogate me intervention style. I actually am dead honest the entire time. I tell them it slipped my mind and I forgot to do it and asked why didn't they email me about it? (They did as above. But they never gave me a "hey you still haven't remediated yet, you might wanna get on that...") Then he gets all POd looking and beats around the bush to insist that I didn't do it maliciously and am trying to undermine him. (I wasn't) I'm sitting there freely admitting that it's my fault, I made a mistake, and that I truely apologize. He seemed hellbent on making the little meeting an issue of how much of an usurper I was. To make matters worse, he's a psych pharmacist, so I'm sure he was examining my eyes, or movements, or breathing, or something and is convinced I was lying about something, somewhere. He drops the bomb - he's gonna fail me for the semester. Now, I got a 70%+ overall for the course, which would normally be a "C". But because I failed to remediate, I get an "F". Most normal situations would have this call for an incomplete, but I'm pretty sure this guy wants me to be induced into an academic coma. There really is no reason why I can't just retake the test the week before rotations start. They tried to tell me that it would be unfair to the womens' health instructor to have to make a new test. She would have had to have anyway, so I'm not sure why that's relevent, but, uh, hey, yeah. Heck, if that's a problem, give me an oral exam, I'll take it no problem. So I'm told that they would discuss it and get back to me.
So I go to Philadelphia to visit my wife's papa for a week. He has colon cancer so we should probably visit him, right? (The angel on the left in white says "Yes!" The one in red on the right says, "NO!") A week of calls/emails and nothing happens. I just get an "F" on my report card and that's that. I call, they beat around the bush more, refusing to tell me what's going on. I come back, ace my nephro retake (95%, w00t!), and go to the dean. He tells me the decision is that I have to come back in October, retake that section of patho, and get a 70 on it. No rotations until then. My preceptors have been notified I'm not coming. Keep in mind that the people Iwill be taking it with in October won't have to get a 70%, just me. What a crock. So basically, I'm looking at starting rotations in November, graduating December '07. I still haven't received a legit reason as to why I can't take the test, like, next week. I still have the notes. I can memorize them. My IQ is 150, I don't need a woman to read power points to me in order to understand something. I'm too ADD to pay attention, anyway. I'l be sitting there for a minute, then the next thing I know I'll be daydreaming about what it would be like to be a Pirate or something. My classroom experience has been pretty much like that since the 8th grade. It's quite a racket they have going on. The only way to be a pharmacist is to jump through their hoops. Like taking Physics to get into pharmacy school. You know. A hoop. Even if there is no purpose to them at all, jump, jump, jump away. I guess this is just another hoop I need to jump though. I'm used to it. It's like taking Physics to get into pharmacy school. You know. A hoop.
**Return to today**
So I'm sitting here. Bored. My job hired new interns to replace me. I just kinda do nothing. I've lost 7 pounds in 11 days. All I do is play basketball in real life and play NCAA '06 on playstation while walking on the treadmill (good workout, you don't even notice you are exercising...) I really have a hard time grasping why they think it is best for me to sit around for 6 months doing nothing while I could be adding to my breadth of knowledge while it is at it's peak; right after didactic training. Do they honestly think that the 3 random things about womens' health I didn't know on the exam that would have given me a 70% trumps the knowledge that will widdle away from my brain over 6 months of inactivity? I'm sure they didn't even consider it. That would require some form of compassion. I think back to when they all assaulted me in that conference room. I asked the psych guy for advice. If he was in my situation, what would he do. Rather than being compassionate, he just goes, "I'm not the person of the type of character that would get into the situation you are in." Really. Is that necessary? They are just punishing me for perceived insubordinence using the facade of academia. This has to be it. I remember my pharmacoenomics teacher mentioning in the last week of class that he KNEW some people were cheating on their end-of-semester papers by helping each other write them. He knew because he heard people talking in the halls. Why aren't these people reprimanded? That's academic dishonesty, grounds for removal from the program, period. Yet those folks are going onto rotations. I just am an idiot that forgot to do something. I did nothing malicious (I think they think I did..that's a mouthful.) yet those who did go off scot-free? Oh well, I dug my grave and I will lay in it. It really is quite a racket they have going on. I mean, who can I complain to? You, that's who. And, sadly, you probably can't help me out. Gotta love academia. You pay people to torture you.
***tv picture goes fuzzy signifying flashback sequence* **
So I'm sitting there about to check my email. It's finals week, and I'm about
dead, running on "E". I got a 65 on my nephrology patho test. Yippee. That means I have to remediate it. They don't do this in any other semester of patho except the last. I have no idea why. Double yippee. I wasn't expecting greatness, I studied all of about 1 hour for it on 7 hours of sleep in 72 hours. Then it hit me. Oops. I got under a 70 on my women's health section, too. Crap, I completely forgot to remediate it. The funny part is that the P-2s took that section in the fall (they rearranged the order the teach stuff) and didn't have to remediate a test if the flunked it. Interesting, no? Anyway, I was moving to a new place that week and I didn't have time for school at all, so it doesn't surprise me I did bad on the test or missed the email. Life happens. I screwed up and I accept it. I assume they forgot about it because they never tried to contact me about. (Turns out it was in a mass email I found later announcing the test was posted....hidden at the end of a paragraph...)
Anyway, I go talk to the nephrology professor, set up a test retake and she goes, "Oh, and Dr. Makela needs to see you." This is the guy that oversees patho. I knew what it was for. So I go in to talk to him. He made me wait 45 minutes while he talked on his cell phone to some....guy. Then he comes out and leads me into the conference room. Inside are two other professors, one who I think wants me dead, and the other I don't know so much. They proceed to interrogate me intervention style. I actually am dead honest the entire time. I tell them it slipped my mind and I forgot to do it and asked why didn't they email me about it? (They did as above. But they never gave me a "hey you still haven't remediated yet, you might wanna get on that...") Then he gets all POd looking and beats around the bush to insist that I didn't do it maliciously and am trying to undermine him. (I wasn't) I'm sitting there freely admitting that it's my fault, I made a mistake, and that I truely apologize. He seemed hellbent on making the little meeting an issue of how much of an usurper I was. To make matters worse, he's a psych pharmacist, so I'm sure he was examining my eyes, or movements, or breathing, or something and is convinced I was lying about something, somewhere. He drops the bomb - he's gonna fail me for the semester. Now, I got a 70%+ overall for the course, which would normally be a "C". But because I failed to remediate, I get an "F". Most normal situations would have this call for an incomplete, but I'm pretty sure this guy wants me to be induced into an academic coma. There really is no reason why I can't just retake the test the week before rotations start. They tried to tell me that it would be unfair to the womens' health instructor to have to make a new test. She would have had to have anyway, so I'm not sure why that's relevent, but, uh, hey, yeah. Heck, if that's a problem, give me an oral exam, I'll take it no problem. So I'm told that they would discuss it and get back to me.
So I go to Philadelphia to visit my wife's papa for a week. He has colon cancer so we should probably visit him, right? (The angel on the left in white says "Yes!" The one in red on the right says, "NO!") A week of calls/emails and nothing happens. I just get an "F" on my report card and that's that. I call, they beat around the bush more, refusing to tell me what's going on. I come back, ace my nephro retake (95%, w00t!), and go to the dean. He tells me the decision is that I have to come back in October, retake that section of patho, and get a 70 on it. No rotations until then. My preceptors have been notified I'm not coming. Keep in mind that the people Iwill be taking it with in October won't have to get a 70%, just me. What a crock. So basically, I'm looking at starting rotations in November, graduating December '07. I still haven't received a legit reason as to why I can't take the test, like, next week. I still have the notes. I can memorize them. My IQ is 150, I don't need a woman to read power points to me in order to understand something. I'm too ADD to pay attention, anyway. I'l be sitting there for a minute, then the next thing I know I'll be daydreaming about what it would be like to be a Pirate or something. My classroom experience has been pretty much like that since the 8th grade. It's quite a racket they have going on. The only way to be a pharmacist is to jump through their hoops. Like taking Physics to get into pharmacy school. You know. A hoop. Even if there is no purpose to them at all, jump, jump, jump away. I guess this is just another hoop I need to jump though. I'm used to it. It's like taking Physics to get into pharmacy school. You know. A hoop.
**Return to today**
So I'm sitting here. Bored. My job hired new interns to replace me. I just kinda do nothing. I've lost 7 pounds in 11 days. All I do is play basketball in real life and play NCAA '06 on playstation while walking on the treadmill (good workout, you don't even notice you are exercising...) I really have a hard time grasping why they think it is best for me to sit around for 6 months doing nothing while I could be adding to my breadth of knowledge while it is at it's peak; right after didactic training. Do they honestly think that the 3 random things about womens' health I didn't know on the exam that would have given me a 70% trumps the knowledge that will widdle away from my brain over 6 months of inactivity? I'm sure they didn't even consider it. That would require some form of compassion. I think back to when they all assaulted me in that conference room. I asked the psych guy for advice. If he was in my situation, what would he do. Rather than being compassionate, he just goes, "I'm not the person of the type of character that would get into the situation you are in." Really. Is that necessary? They are just punishing me for perceived insubordinence using the facade of academia. This has to be it. I remember my pharmacoenomics teacher mentioning in the last week of class that he KNEW some people were cheating on their end-of-semester papers by helping each other write them. He knew because he heard people talking in the halls. Why aren't these people reprimanded? That's academic dishonesty, grounds for removal from the program, period. Yet those folks are going onto rotations. I just am an idiot that forgot to do something. I did nothing malicious (I think they think I did..that's a mouthful.) yet those who did go off scot-free? Oh well, I dug my grave and I will lay in it. It really is quite a racket they have going on. I mean, who can I complain to? You, that's who. And, sadly, you probably can't help me out. Gotta love academia. You pay people to torture you.
posted by --==-- | 4:19 PM
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