Not Graduating… Again

Would you all like to hear a funny story? I bet you would.

The story starts a few weeks ago when I went to register for my classes. I went by the CS department to have an advisor sign off on my one class so that the system would let me register. She registered the class for me and when I asked “Are they going to send a bill in the mail?” She said that they would, but I could also go online and pay it.

So I went online that afternoon and … what do you know, I couldn’t pay for it online yet. So I called student receivables… it hadn’t posted yet, so they wouldn’t take my money. So, busy person that I am, I just decided to wait for the bill to come in the mail and forgot all about it.

Never really got a bill. Last week I realized that I had way more money in my bank account than I ought to, and decided to sign on and see what the deal was. Imagine my surprise to see that I… didn’t owe anything. I called the University and, what do you know, the computer is down so they can’t look. Call back tomorrow. I did.

I went ahead and called back the next day… and they said that I didn’t owe anything because I had been disenrolled from my classes. Why? Because I hadn’t paid. Why? Because, well, they don’t send bills in the summer… you have to come in and pay. They said that my advisor should’ve told me that. So what now? Well, I had to pay the entire thing up front and they’d put me back in. No problem, right?

Right. Except that it was close to the end of a pay period so I was, as usual, low on cash (except for that huge chunk of tuition money sitting in there)… so I asked if it would cause any problems to wait until Friday. No problems, they said. Great!

Also, at some point last week, I also got a letter saying that my graduation had been canceled because I wasn’t enrolled in my class. Yeah, not news to me, but I figured it wouldn’t do me any good to call back until I was actually in the class again… so Friday comes and it was a crazy-busy day, I forgot all about tuition until… you guessed it… Saturday night when it was too late to even pay online.

So Monday after class I headed down to Student receivables, paid my tuition and they told me that the courses should show up Tuesday. Excellent. They did, but yesterday was ridiculous and I didn’t make it by A&S to figure out what was up with the whole graduation thing.

I went by today, and A&S said they just needed to add me back to the list, and it shouldn’t be a problem… but if it was, they’d give me a call.

Fast forward one hour and my phone rings from a random 205 number. I return the call and, what do you know, but Records says it’s too late to be added to the graduation list.

No graduation for Pete until December despite the fact that come tomorrow afternoon, all of the degree requirements will be met.

Now, I know what you’re saying “Holy crap, you moron! How have you screwed this up so! many! times!?” I can assure you that I have asked myself that very same question, and have found no suitable response. You might also be wondering: “So… what about that law school thing?” Well, it turns out that I’m just going to join the circus. I’m going to be “Perpetual College Boy.” Please do not feed the animals.

Just kidding. I spoke with IU this afternoon and they said it won’t be a problem. UA will certify that I’ve met degree requirements next week and fax that certification to IU, and that will suffice for them until December when I really graduate. For real this time.

No, really.

So the end result is… no big difference, except that, well, I’ll be damned if I can’t just make this whole undergraduate thing GO AWAY.

Also, I think I officially beat Charlsie whose degree didn’t post until after she started her classes at law school. I will have completed a semester of Law School before my BS degree posts. (UPDATE: I did not, in fact, beat Charlsie. I guess we tied. Crap. Maybe I’ll have them push back my degree until May.)

That’s because I’m awesome.