A lot has happened in the last week, college-wise, that is.
Apparently after the first year in college, FAFSA requires a degree audit. So after a few emails of Financial Aide yelling at me to make an appointment with the Financial Aid Adviser at the school, I got in to my long-ago set appointment.
Initially I had made the appointment to talk about Learning Contracts. I had this amazing offer to tour Europe this summer, I just had to pay for my flight over there. After a lot of hmming and hawing, my boss in the Learning Center suggested I do learning contracts over the summer while I travel. Learning contracts are just what they sound like, you set up a contract with a professor to do an independent study, with assignments you both agree on that will earn you x amount of credits. I made an appointment with the Learning Contracts Advisor so she could give me the details.
Somewhere during our appointment she pointed out that I was enrolled in the Associates of Arts and Sciences Transfer English degree that was specific to Western Washington University. Since I’m not planning on going there, she suggested I do a generic Arts and sciences degree, which would shave off some math and English requirements, and get me closer to finishing. THEN she went on to say something about the Liberal Arts Degree, which isn’t a transfer degree, but would get rid of a lot of my requirements and replace them with electives. This was fascinating to me.
I thought about it, and emailed my Durham contact and the gentleman that I met when I took the General Studies Admissions Exam for Columbia University. I told them my predicament, that I was debating between the two degrees, and my main concern was that one of them wasn’t a transfer. Columbia said that it doesn’t matter what degree I go for at a community college, all they’re looking for is a few demonstration semesters to show my academic ability. Durham said that they don’t care what degree I have, just as long as I get an AA and take classes that pertain to the degree I want to get trough them. Both told me my credits wouldn’t transfer over.
So! My next step of the Learning Contract was to find out Financial Aide’s allowance, and what they needed from me. This was the initial reason I made the appointment.
However! Due to the car wreck, I can no longer afford to get to Europe. Aside from the fact that I now need a new car, it’s expensive to get into a wreck! With towing and signing my car over to them and te citation, I’m out over half a grand!
I kept the appointment with Financial Aid to make the emails stop. I told my advisor about them when I went in, and she laughed, saying I hadn’t done anything wrong, they just automatically go out after four quarters. I told her about my contemplation about the change in degrees, and she looked at my transcript. She had me signing the papers to change it before I knew what was going on. The next thing I knew was she was having me sign papers that said I would be graduating at the end of fall quarter! I have seven classes I need to take and then I’m done, and since I’m doing three classes in the summer, she insisted I do four classes in the fall. This is already proving to be tricky. in fact, the way it’s looking, I’ll be doing five classes – three normal five credit classes, and then two Honors classes, since I need two more to graduate with Honors.
So that’s intense.
I’ll leave the story off there…You can read about the other things that have happened in later entries 🙂
Scribing English All Over The Place 