My Laurels

Anyone want to hear a funny story?  Remember how I graduated back in August?

Well actually I didn't.

Or I did. But I didn't until a week ago. If you can wrap your brain around that.

Here's what I know about what happened: On July 9, I submitted my application to graduate on August 31. Word on the street was that I had all my ducks in a row and all I had to do was rest on my figurative academic laurels.

Then round about September 3 I got an email from the head of the English Department that said, "Oh hey hi. Just keep in touch." And since I still hadn't received an email or a letter saying "YOU, GRADUATE, ARE A WINNER," I asked him what was up with my graduation and he said, "well actually, Idk. We can't find your folder."

Uh. wha?

My wha?

Can't wha?

So apparently someone in the office went on leave and like, hid my file under a bushel or something and even though only ONE step needed to be completed in my graduation application (i.e., it needed to be approved by the English Department) and someone could have just asked me what was up, or, you know, looked online, no one contacted me or let me know what was happening (which was nothing).

So all I needed to do was tell the department head, "Yes, I'm done," and he approved my application and it got pushed through to the Grad School to be finalized. That's it. Why didn't anyone call or email me, oh, I don't know, in JULY or AUGUST? There are only like 13 people in our program. We can't be that difficult to keep track of.

But since I was eventually contacted and they worked out and were nice about it, that part's not really so bad. The person who usually handles these things is on leave. That's understandable.

What really bothers me is the way the school, Georgetown itself, communicates with its students. When I contacted the Grad School if they had gotten my graduation application, I got back an anonymous reply that said "check your online account in a week." Since my online account has about 75 things in it and none of them say "graduation status," I asked where to look and was told, "check your transcript."

Now.... Georgetown is a very expensive school with lots of famous alumni and large endowments. Are you telling me that they can't afford an email, as a courtesy, to let you know that you've graduated? Or, on a related note, letting you know something has gone wrong with your graduation? We have no faculty advisers so it would be great if just one person on the staff paid some attention to whether people were actually graduating or not. And to whether the school was behaving courteously towards its students, who are, after all, also paying customers.

Anyway. After two months of wondering, since there's no clear place to check, and no one on the staff with whom to communicate, I am pleased to be able to say that my online transcript now has a retroactive graduation date of August 31: I magically graduated 3 days before I found out I had not actually graduated.

Congratulations to me.