What College Ought to Be

The events of the past four weeks, and lets face it, the past six semesters have caused me to feel increasing disappointed in my college choice. The massive amount of time and money I feel like I'm wasting here is causing me to wish I had gone to Vandercook or Northeastern. But no, I was "guaranteed" and "good education here at Elmhurst College, what college ought to be."

Lets start at the beginning with the administrative end of this institution, or lack there of. As an incoming freshmen I, and my mother, were both told that they would help us make sure my account was in good standing all the time-and if there was a problem I would be notified in enough time to rectify the problem before I was either charged the 1% late fee or not allowed to register for classes or attend class all together. Low and behold my spring semester of my Freshmen year I received a statement saying I owed nothing on my account and being the nieve Freshmen I was did not check in to it; figuring that the college knew what they were doing and if there was indeed a problem they would tell me about it. It did seem a little strange to me so I went in to check it out the last day we were allowed to make payments before our enrollment was revoked and I found out I owed the enitre semester's tuition. I had to borrow emergency money from my parents in order to stay at Elmhurst-that should have been my first clue. Now I realize that I'm older and should be able to handle my responsibilites-and I definitley can-this must have been one of life's lessons on you can't trust anyone but yourself to take care of business no matter how important it is. There are people in my life I know I can count on to help me when I need it, none of them work in the administrative areas of my school.

Lesson number 2: Adjunct teachers and teachers obviously less qualified than I to be teaching at this college.
It all started with English 106, the class that was supposed to be a composition II class but it ended up being a service project helping people who contracted AIDS. NOT what I signed up for and definitley an uncomfortable semester for me personally for reasons I would rather not get in to on this post. I signed up for an ENGLISH COMPOSITION class....wait a minute....why are we driving in to wheaton to volunteer time I don't have to sit and chat with people who have AIDS? Now I know this might sound harsh and insensitive on my part, and I don't have anything against these people in any way, I just did not have the time to do this so called "service" project when I should have been practicing or focusing on my MUSIC EDUCATION degree.

Sophomre year wasn't bad as far as getting nothing out of my classes, aside from the religious studies class I had to take so lets move on ->

Junior Year, our current year:
Fall semester I had a psychology teach who sat across from me at her desk and told me and I quote "I honestly don't care about this class, but I expect you to give me 100% of your time and attention" .... Strike 2 Elmhurst College. Why did you hire this woman?

Current semester, Spring semester:
So far, week three has been both a nightmare and a lot of fun all at the same time. I have to admit that 90% of my teachers this semester make me feel like I'm right where I should be and are not wasting my time. However, in conducting, I feel like the two hours a week we spend in there right now is not only a waste of time but is also killing my brain cells slowly and painfully. The warmup exercises we do has had no benefit to my conducting education whatsoever. Lets not forget, the first day of class I was read the table of contents.....by my "professor"....... I'm holding that against her right now until-yes I AM. On top of that she brought in someone to teach basically a crash course in music history 1 which I also did not get anything out of whatsoever. What college ought to be huh? For those of you who are indeed Sue fans I apologize if this struck a nerve-I just fail to see how she of any benefit to my education here. We got more out of Professor Grimes the first week than we have in three out of Sue.

I'm coming up with solutions and do not have them all compiled yet. When I do they will be posted.

I also talked with my Doc yet again today and still no word from the other Doctor because apparently THEY keep losing my records somehow. One of the two places is lying to me and it's pissing me off to no end. So now tomorrow I have to take a jet up to the North Shore to pick up my records myself and then take the Metra in to the city on Monday to drop this crap off in person. I'm just about ready to say forget my liver, forget my health problems and pretend like they don't exist. I am officially beyond the end of my patience rope, way beyond it.

End of line.