Dear Ed Taylor c\/o Office of Undergraduate Education,<\/p>\n
You said you wanted to hear about my UW experiences. Here are a few:<\/p>\n
I’m a transfer student with credits coming in from two different institutions. So when I arrived last autumn, I had a lot of work to do to make sure my credits were properly transfered over. I had to talk to many different departments and advisors, filing multiple petitions and filling out many forms. For the most part, that process worked. I got the proper transfer credit for most of my math and science classes, and that made getting a degree here at the UW much more attainable. However, along with all the courses that became a direct equivalent here at the UW were many courses which became “dead credits.” I call them this because they weigh own my transcript without serving any useful purpose. Let me give you some examples:<\/p>\n
1) Out of high school, I attended BYU. Unlike the UW, BYU doesn’t accept college-in-high-school credit. So the calculus classes I took in high school, and recieved BCC college credit for, didn’t count at BYU. It didn’t bother me much at the time; I simply took honors calculus at BYU my first two semesters, and I was merrily on my way. However, the result now is not nearly as clean. Since the UW does accept college-in-high school credit, here, I have credit for those high school calculus classes. I also have credit from my BYU calculus classes. Only one set of these credits is useful, but I’m stuck with both.<\/p>\n
2) During high school, I took some running start classes. But having no particular degree in mind at the time, I guess I didn’t choose them very well, since mostly they ended up showing up here as “Biol 1XX” or “Math 1XX.” When I ended up back at BCC after my time at BYU, I pursued an AAS for the Direct Transfer Agreement, and this time I ended up with credits that shows up as specific things, but mostly useless things for the degrees I happen to be pursuing.<\/p>\n
So, I have a lot of irrelevant credits. No big deal, right? Wrong. Because every quarter I’ve been here, save one, I have had to deal with a registration hold. Each time, the hold has become progressively harder to get rid of. First, I just had to email some people to clear some things up. Then it was simply talking to an adviser at Mary Gates and getting a signature. That was my very first quarter here. At that point, I already had “too many” credits. Now, I need a signature of the college dean or an appointee. What will I need next, Mark Emmert’s signature? Then God’s?<\/p>\n
I have a graduation plan. It is on track. I have only one year here at the UW under my belt, and yet I deal with this crap every quarter. It takes up my time that I would rather spend learning and passing classes so I can get out of here.<\/p>\n
How about we strike a deal? You give me the option of blasting away credits that I earned elsewhere and which count for nothing. Then your mighty machine of bureaucracy stops flagging me and wasting all of our time. Everybody ends up happy, right? I don’t have “too many” meaningless credits, and you don’t have to bug me every quarter about my failure to graduate after a year at your institution.<\/p>\n
It sounds good to me. Does it sound good to you?<\/p>\n
~Ryan McElroy<\/p>\n
Office of Undergraduate Education wrote:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dear Ryan Edward McElroy <\/p>\n
We look forward to celebrating your academic achievements with you at
\n the University’s annual commencement ceremony. An important step in
\n graduating is formulating a plan to graduate with an academic adviser.<\/p>\nUniversity policy requires that undergraduates complete their degrees
\n with fewer than 210 credits. Because you will have earned at least 210
\n credits by the end of this quarter, a hold has now been placed on your
\n registration.<\/p>\nIf you will graduate this quarter–congratulations! All you need to do
\n is submit a graduation application. If you haven’t already applied to
\n graduate, your department adviser can help you submit an application.
\n Please meet with him\/her at this time.<\/p>\nStudents with more than 210 credits may not continue to enroll at the
\n University unless they have a 210-credit petition approved by the dean of
\n their college, or his\/her designee. The petition must include a goal of
\n graduating from the University within a period of two academic quarters
\n of the petition’s acceptance.<\/p>\nOnce your 210-credit petition is approved, the hold will be removed.
\n Your academic advisers will work with you to develop a 210-credit petition
\n that meets your academic goals and UW graduation requirements. Please
\n meet with your adviser at this time. You must complete a 210-credit
\n petition even if you have applied to graduate in a future quarter.<\/p>\nTo view an example of what is expected in a graduation plan, visit the
\n Arts and Sciences form at
\n http:\/\/www.artsci.washington.edu\/services\/Curriculum\/Petition2RemoveHold.pdf<\/p>\nIf you are currently studying abroad and cannot meet with an adviser,
\n please contact us at ugrad@u.washington.edu.<\/p>\nI’m also very interested in hearing about your UW experience. I encourage
\n you to send me a note (I may be reached at ugrad@u.washington.edu) to
\n tell me about your involvement in particular programs or research
\n opportunities and how they contributed to your education and future
\n plans.<\/p>\nSincerely, <\/p>\n
Ed Taylor
\n Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dear Ed Taylor c\/o Office of Undergraduate Education, You said you wanted to hear about my UW experiences. Here are a few: I’m a transfer student with credits coming in from two different institutions. So when I arrived last autumn, I had a lot of work to do to make sure my credits were properly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-everything","tag-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}