And So The Race Starts

My notes on Economics

I don't remember ever having a period at the University quite like this one. First of all, the period to enroll in the classes was separated only by a week's time from the first tutorials. (Here I'd like to remind all that this University is a D-learning one, thus you don't have weekly classes like in all other universities, but only four tutorials through the whole period: two before the first test and two before the last (or second) test. As it is, you really have to read the material for each tutorial ahead because most tutorials are about answering questions of what you didn't understand from your readings.) This would have given you a really small widow of oportunity to prepare for the tutorial if it weren't for the fact that 1. after online enrolling you are supposed to go to your Study Center to pick up your books, on the week of the enrolling, except this time there were NO BOOKS at the Study Center; and 2. Neither the books nor the schedules of the tutorials were to be available but on the week when the tutorials were supposed to begin. I bet you can imagine the stress this lack of proper planning created in not a few of us.

To be honest, I was quite surprised at first because of the really short time between the enrolling week and the tutorials, but then, as things started to unroll, it just got worse. The Study Centers (these are like the University's local seats, and every student must be subscribed to one of these, for it is at these where they are supposed to do their tests and where they must render their papers, when the classes they take have papers to be rendered in physical format) had no time to prepare, specially since the new order for enrolling was that the materials for each student were to be sent to the Study Centers according to the enrollment for each class. This way the University could control their material inventory better. What's this "material"? Well, at this University, you don't need to buy books for the classes, but the books you'll need are included in the cost of the subject (all subjects for the different levels have the same price, so there's no such a thing as you paying more for some classes for the same level or less for others. For instance, all subjects for Bachelor's degree have a cost of $80). Some books cost more than the cost of the subject, so you can imagine than some of those could cost more on the market. Probably the system was implemented to control possible "missmanagements" of these materials. Normally the material for the classes doesn't change much through several periods, so the books not used up in a period can be used in later periods.

Anyway, even if I wanted to, being that I'm enrolled in a specific Study Center I can't pick up my books at other Study Centers. So the harrassing of the centers began, with a convenient "drop of the lines" right after the enrollment week ended. No phone line worked, and nobody responded to the online chats. The only answer was that tutorial schedules would be posted on January 30th, and books would be delievered after February 3rd. And tutorials began on February 2nd. What if your tutorial was on February 2nd? How would you prepare for it or even follow the lecture of the tutor (some tutors do impart lectures) if you don't have the book? I, for instance, have actually a tutorial on Febrary 3rd.

Anyway, since I knew that a certain Study Center was delievering the books on January 29th, I decided to go to my Study Center and ask if, for some miracle, or by leaning on the many years I've known them and our friendship, they would release my books earlier. So I went yesterday there - after quite a long morning and noon taking care of banking things (paid out my credit card and got HORRIFIED at how much I had to pay. Really, I had expected less, and the amount shocked me to no ends. Thanks Hyne I had some extra money to cover for that, because it really took out my jugular). As it turned out, it was great that I did so, for they had the books and they were willing to give me my books - stamping on my receipt a February date, since they weren't allowed to deliever the books before the official date.

The schedules that were supposed to be posted yesterday didn't got posted until today, where I realized that, yes, I have two classes on Saturday (one Saturday for one class, and another for the other), and on Wednesday. One of the subjects had an e-book, which was also quite complicated to download, and the tutor on charge wasn't really of much help to get to it. It turns out that that book - which was the first I've got - belongs to a subject for which I'll have the tutorials on the second week. Great. So I could advance on the subject for which I had more time to prepare.

On this period I enrolled on two classes for the Marketing career, and one for the Finance career. Finance is my priority, but there was no other class offered from the ones I need to take to complete my degree. That's why I decided to go mixing my classes for both careers. One single class would be so boring. Well, at least for me. Or so I thought until I saw how many projects and papers I'll have to prepare. And on top of all, I have the German classes at the Goethe Center, which are twice a week. Something like this was a piece of cake for me when I was 20 years old, we shall see how the 40 years old me is capable to handle this.