I know I speak for most students when I say that I have a love/hate relationship with the system. It might even be safe to say it’s an abusive relationship.
One example, Financial Aid makes you stand in line for hours then they give you a nice gift (a refund check) and then you get happy and forget it ever happened. Then the next semester, the same thing happens again.
It’s a cycle … just like an abusive relationship. The cycle won’t end until you graduate and even then it may not be over.
Well, this relationship could actually be a functional one … if you (the student) do your part. This includes filling out your FAFSA before the deadline, turning in housing applications before the deadline and dealing with the registrar before you need to verify that you are a full-time student, It’s basically doing everything in your power to make sure there are no problems as to not give the employees any excuse for your problems being addressed.
Recently, the financial aid process was changed. However, didn’t they have numerous posters around campus saying when the FAFSA was due the for priority deadline? How many people actually had their FAFSA completed by then? I bet those people weren’t waiting in line all day only to be escorted out of the building by Zachary Police (where was SUPD?)!
Housing was also an issue. Again, people did not fill out their housing application by the deadline. This caused people not have a room to stay in when coming from out-of-town, out-of-state and some out-of-the-country.
Students can’t blame SU for their problems then run to the news with the intention of airing dirty laundry when they didn’t comply with the deadline.
With that being said, the offices have to comply with the students … to an extent. This means actually being the office during office hours, not taking three-hour lunch breaks and answering the phone.
This will come back to haunt the university later. If a student has a bad experience with Financial Aid, Residential Life, Registrar’s Office, etc., this will cause the alum to not give back to the university. If you look at most PWIs (predominantly white institutions), their alumni is constantly giving back. Seems as though people get their degree from Southern then disappear into the Witness Protection Program.
So we (students and administration) have to work together. We should be unified and have one common goal: getting out of here on time.
However, the offices that you need the most (Financial Aid, Registrar, Residential Life, etc.) make it very difficult. If I were weak, I probably would have thrown in the towel. However, I’ll stay and get a degree so I can have a job with air conditioning … since I’m not cut out for lard labor.
I guess it is true … Southern does build character.
Categories:
We all need to do better
August 23, 2010
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