A- or BUST

In graduate school, sometimes we take hard classes.  Other times, we take classes outside our field of expertise.  Occasionally, we even get around to taking hard classes that are also outside our field of expertise.  Sometimes these classes help us gain valuable knowledge and skills that will forever benefit our skills.  Sometimes they teach us about the frustrations of life.  I think I've had enough of the latter.

The course was Wireless Networking.  The project?  Implementing full-duplex radios in a large industrial (read:  not entirely open-source) wireless simulator.  The problem?  Well, for starters, there needed to be serious changes to the infrastructure of the program including canceling timers at the right interval, sending packets through the correct protocol, etc, etc... But the second problem was just as significant:  I needed to understand the system forward-and-backward just to know what needed to be changed.  

Of course, I didn't start the project until later in the semester than I should have, but the professor made it seem like there would only be "a few small adjustments," and most of the work would be data analysis.  A week before the semester was over, I realized this was far from the truth:  I'd put in a good 20 hours on the project and still wasn't able to perform any "data analysis."  I figured I would just resort to using my powers of persuasion and emphasize some irregularities we'd observed to make a case, but in a class presentation a week before the semester was over, we were cut short by our professor who kindly informed us we were nowhere near finished and would need to complete the implementation by the week's end.

5 1/2 days, 40 hours more (including two near-all-nighters), and still nothing.  I don't think I'm an idiot, and I'm surely not incompetent when it comes to coding in C++ (just ask Smarterer--my score of 612 gives me a "proficient" rating), but I could not slay the beast.  Persuasive powers put to use again, I turned in what I thought was a fairly decent paper considering the circumstances.  When grades rolled around, I got a B in the class.  Not exactly what I wanted, and definitely not what my GPA was looking forward to, so I asked the professor if I could finish the project over the holiday in exchange for a regrade.  She was agreed.

It wasn't until 120 hours later (over my "break") that I finally had something working--and not just hobbling along, either.  I put together a stellar report complete with some of the aforementioned data analysis, and submitted for a regrade.  Within a few days, I got my professor's response:  an A- in the course.

I was thrilled, and so was my advisor (he'd expressed some concerns with my current GPA, but my promises for a higher grade in the class left him satisfied).  I put it all behind me.

Until about a week ago, when I got the following email from my professor (edited for brevity):

I submitted a request to change your course grade to A-. But it was not approved by the graduate office. To be fair to everyone, the graduate office enforced only considering the work done before the end of the semester.

In the past, students informed me in advance that they needed additional time to complete the project due to certain reasons and I assigned them an incomplete grade and was able to change them to a letter grade. Unfortunately, it didn't work in this case since you didn't inform me about the intention to continue the project and a letter grade had been submitted at the end of the semester. 

Sorry that I didn't know about the different treatment in the two cases earlier. If helpful, I'd be happy to write a letter to indicate you did a good job in the course and would be happy to give you A- if I had the option to do that based on the new project submission.

Seriously?  "only considering work done before the end of the semester" unless you have "certain reasons" to ask for "additional time"?  I've heard about this before.  You mess around the entire semester and realize you didn't do anything on your project, ask your professor for an extension, they give you an incomplete and a couple extra months to finish your project.  Apparently, if I would have simply asked for an incomplete and done the exact same work, I could have got an A- in the class.


I'm hoping this isn't the end of the story.  I'm hoping I'll go in and talk to the graduate advisor and he'll push through the red tape.  But I also hoped graduate school wouldn't be so full of drama.

Whatever the outcome, this is strike two against academia.  Why does an institution so "dedicated" to producing scholars have so many artificial barriers to keep you from getting there?


Maybe someday this will all make sense.


That's what I keep telling myself.



****************
UPDATE:
I went and talked to the graduate advisor and it wasn't his doing.  Apparently, it's gone all the way up to some university secretary (hopefully she has an undergraduate degree in Cosmetology or Physical Therapy.  Actually, it looks like she has a degree in Entertainment Marketing.  Cool.) who has the choice to sign off or reject.  Fortunately, she chose to reject with the following message:

"A student is expected to complete a course, including a self-paced
course, in a single semester, summer term, or summer session. If the
course is not completed as expected, the student normally will not be
given additional time to complete it, or to do additional work to achieve
a better grade. In rare instances, for nonacademic reasons and at the
discretion of the instructor, a temporary delay of the final course grade,
symbol X, may be recorded." - General Information Catalog, pg 81 

Unfortunately, in  order for that extra time that Nathan Clement took to
count towards his coursework, he would need to have requested additional
time and been assigned an X.

Sweet. I'm so glad I was informed.  Don't worry, never again will I spend 120 hours over Christmas break working on a Wireless Networking class project.  Lesson learned!