Puzzling University Process

 

Figuring out how to handle all of my university stuff was a challenge. I tried emailing folks at the university but wasn’t getting any replies. I looked online for information about how to proceed. I found something on the website saying that students could not register for classes until the tuition was paid. Before I left the States, I initiated a wire transfer. The funds were set to arrive a week later. A couple days before the funds were set to transfer, I received a message saying there was a hang up with my funds. From what I found online it seemed that this transfer would most likely be canceled. Knowing I was running out of time, I began pulling out money from my American account and depositing it into my American account. It took several days to pull out enough for the tuition. 

After my last trip to an ATM, I went home to make the online transfer. I was in the process of making sure I had all of the correct information when I received a notification that my initial transfer had gone through! I was literally two minutes away from paying for tuition twice. What a close call!

Once the payment was made, I kept checking my email for instructions on how to register for classes. I also emailed a couple of my university contacts. I heard nothing. Finally on the Thursday before classes began on Monday, I decided to go to the university to see if they would let me on to get some face to face information. I went to the office and tried to explain my situation. I told them I had paid but needed to know how to register. The department secretary was confused as to how I had been able to pay. She said I wasn’t yet, in fact, an official student. She was perplexed as to how my payment had even been accepted. She went on to say that the reason I hadn’t yet been approved as an official student was because they needed proof that I could handle the program in English. They had emailed me about this she explained. I never received such an email. 

I explained that English is my first language and all my education up to this point had been in English. “Yes,” she said, “but your diploma doesn’t specifically say you studied in English.” Uhhhh… It’s implied. She told me in order to officially accept me they either needed a letter from my university declaring I had in fact studied in English or else I needed to do an English proficiency exam. It just so happened they had an English exam that evening and that might be the quickest course of action. So I hung around to do take the asinine English proficiency exam. 

While I waited, I tried to familiarize myself with the campus. I spent some time praying and I got an early dinner there. I forgot to grab some silverware. While I left my food for a few seconds to get said silverware, a dang bird came and was eating off my plate! Stinking birds. 

Campus Map

Just after the bird stole some food

A quiet, sunny place to pray before the exam

Sunset sea view from the testing room

I took the English test and guess what? It turns out I’m proficient in English. I might have even found some grammatical errors on the English test! 

The secretary had told me that the test results should be in by 11:00 at the latest at which point she would email and let me know how to register. At 11:30 when I still hadn’t received anything from her, I emailed her. She wrote back with this message:

“You can contact Financial Affairs and get your financial approval based on the email you received from our Student Affairs office.”

What email? I had no emails. I replied, “I’m trying to understand this process. I don’t yet have an email from Student Affairs. My first step is that this email came to me. The second is to contact Financial Affairs. Have I understood correctly?”

The secretary, clearly thinking I’m an idiot, sent another email in English saying “I sent the information again.” 

Oh, I thought, she must have meant her reply to my first email. I replied asking if this is what she meant. She replied again, “Yes, please see Financial Affairs and show them the receipt from where you have already paid.” 

At this point it was about 2:30 on a Friday and the offices were supposed to close at 5:30. I quickly got ready and took a taxi to the university. I went to Financial Affairs. Again the worker was so confused as to how I had been able to pay without actually being a student. I shrugged my shoulders. She took my receipt and gave me my student number.

I took the student number to the department secretary and asked how I was supposed to register for classes. She told me to login with the username and password in the email I received. What email? I checked my email, checked my spam, there was no email. It all became clear in that moment that my email provider had flat out blocked all the emails originating from the university. The only time I could receive an email was if I had contacted them first. I have no idea why my email provider decided to block these emails but it does shed light onto why I was so clueless about everything. I used a different email address and got the login information. I registered for classes just in time. Phew! 

This puzzle was a good reflection of how I felt trying to
figure out the university process without having access
to key information.