The Higher Education Megathread

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Red
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PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by Red » Wed Jun 17, 2020 9:57 am

I need my last grade back from my other modules so I can work out to what extent this can go wrong and I still get a distinction (which I don't expect to get, I'm just averaging one at the moment and it feels possible against all my low expectations going into this).

Coconut Bob wrote:You come across as feminine as a cave troll so its no wonder you have little concept of the way females should behave.

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Mini E
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PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by Mini E » Wed Jul 01, 2020 10:25 pm

Ladies and gents, if any of you could sign this - I'd be grateful. Two more rounds of 'voluntary' redundancies announced at Winchester today in the midst of the covid-19 stresses, even though the upper echelons of management continue to take home quite disgusting pay packets and bonuses. I don't work at the University any more, but have friends and former colleagues getting shat on. This unfortunately seems to be happening in quite a few institutions.

twitter.com/WinchesterUCU/status/1278424015984562176


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That
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PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by That » Fri Jul 10, 2020 10:33 am

My corrections have been accepted. I'm a doctor. :toot:

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Moggy
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PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by Moggy » Fri Jul 10, 2020 10:33 am

Karl_ wrote:My corrections have been accepted. I'm a doctor. :toot:


Congrats!! :wub: :toot:

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Jenuall
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PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by Jenuall » Fri Jul 10, 2020 10:56 am

Hooray! It's a great feeling isn't it? :toot:

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Trelliz
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PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by Trelliz » Fri Jul 10, 2020 11:44 am

Karl_ wrote:My corrections have been accepted. I'm a doctor. :toot:


Welcome to the doctor club.

jawa2 wrote:Tl;dr Trelliz isn't a miserable git; he's right.
Corazon de Leon

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by Corazon de Leon » Fri Jul 10, 2020 11:46 am

Mini E wrote:Ladies and gents, if any of you could sign this - I'd be grateful. Two more rounds of 'voluntary' redundancies announced at Winchester today in the midst of the covid-19 stresses, even though the upper echelons of management continue to take home quite disgusting pay packets and bonuses. I don't work at the University any more, but have friends and former colleagues getting shat on. This unfortunately seems to be happening in quite a few institutions.

twitter.com/WinchesterUCU/status/1278424015984562176



Signed, and shared on my academic ( :lol: ) Twitter account. Sorry I missed it initially.

Corazon de Leon

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by Corazon de Leon » Fri Jul 10, 2020 11:47 am

Karl_ wrote:My corrections have been accepted. I'm a doctor. :toot:


Brilliant work mate, I’m chuffed for you. :wub:

Maybe now that Karl is in the squad we can get that doctors sub-folder we were after :slol:

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Trelliz
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PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by Trelliz » Fri Jul 10, 2020 11:51 am

Corazon de Leon wrote:
Karl_ wrote:My corrections have been accepted. I'm a doctor. :toot:


Brilliant work mate, I’m chuffed for you. :wub:

Maybe now that Karl is in the squad we can get that doctors sub-folder we were after :slol:


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jawa2 wrote:Tl;dr Trelliz isn't a miserable git; he's right.
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Jenuall
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PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by Jenuall » Fri Jul 10, 2020 11:55 am

:lol:

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Red
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PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by Red » Fri Jul 10, 2020 11:59 am

Well done Karl! That's awesome.

Coconut Bob wrote:You come across as feminine as a cave troll so its no wonder you have little concept of the way females should behave.

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Jenuall
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PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by Jenuall » Fri Jul 10, 2020 12:06 pm

Next step is to make the "prof" bit official! ;)

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Cuttooth
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PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by Cuttooth » Fri Jul 10, 2020 12:15 pm

Trelliz wrote:
Corazon de Leon wrote:
Karl_ wrote:My corrections have been accepted. I'm a doctor. :toot:


Brilliant work mate, I’m chuffed for you. :wub:

Maybe now that Karl is in the squad we can get that doctors sub-folder we were after :slol:


Image

There's a dozen of us!

EDIT - Realise this might be read as me saying I'm a doctor. Please rest assured that I really really am not. :slol:

Corazon de Leon

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by Corazon de Leon » Fri Jul 10, 2020 12:17 pm

Cuttooth wrote:
Trelliz wrote:
Corazon de Leon wrote:
Karl_ wrote:My corrections have been accepted. I'm a doctor. :toot:


Brilliant work mate, I’m chuffed for you. :wub:

Maybe now that Karl is in the squad we can get that doctors sub-folder we were after :slol:


Image

There's a dozen of us!


I love this. :lol:

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Mini E
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PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by Mini E » Fri Jul 10, 2020 6:02 pm

Amazing Karl. Welcome to an awesome club. I’m so pleased for you!

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That
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PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by That » Fri Jul 10, 2020 6:36 pm

Thanks everyone! :wub: It's a weird feeling to be honest, after being a student continuously for the last nearly nine years(!), but I'm very pleased!

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Corazon de Leon

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by Corazon de Leon » Fri Jul 10, 2020 6:41 pm

I hear you, I managed 12 years of continuous studenthood and didn't (don't) know what the strawberry float to do when I got out. :lol:

Corazon de Leon

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by Corazon de Leon » Mon Jul 13, 2020 8:42 pm

I dunno where this rant should go so I’m putting it in here.

I’ve been casually employed by an institution to do lecturing and teaching tutorials, supervising undergraduate dissertations, etc. since I finished my PhD a couple of years ago. Last September I heard that because I’m employed by them I might be able to do a PGCert in higher education teaching with membership of the HEA coming at the end. Brilliant, great opportunity.

To take advantage of it I emailed the course support team asking if I qualify for free tuition, as a casual employee, and apparently I don’t. That’s a shame, I thought, I do quite a lot of work for the uni. So I sent an email saying basically “that’s fine, but I’m really disappointed at the stance you’ve taken here.” But the qualification is a really good one to have and enhances employability/job prospects so I applied anyway and ticked the self funding box on the application.

Imagine my surprise when I received an unconditional offer from the uni, which clearly stated that I was due free tuition due to my status as a university employee. They must’ve taken a second look at my request and decided that I qualify after all. Happy days, something has gone my way, let’s rejoice.

So I’m really chuffed they’ve listened to me, set up my student account and tried to sign up for classes. I couldn’t complete sign up due to some problem with my account so for the next few weeks I was in communication with various support teams, IT guys and the same course administrator who told me I was ineligible for funding previously, but it’s never brought up again. The consensus is that there’s a problem with my account.

Unfortunately, working at the uni and also holding down a non-academic role means I don’t always have time to deal with anything else so I dropped in and out of trying to get this sorted out for the best part of the next nine months. Every time it follows the same course of action - I email or phone them, they tell me it’s been sorted, I think it’s sorted and try to sign up for classes, it’s not sorted.

Cut to today and I finally hit the end of my tether with it because the course was supposed to end in May and I should have FHEA status by now. I emailed the course support people and they pass it back to the same person who told me, all those months ago, that I was ineligible for funding. Before it was all sorted out and I was told in writing that I didn’t have to pay.

It turns out that the problem is that they’d sent my acceptance letter by mistake and I should have received an acceptance letter that was conditional on me paying the tuition fees. So the reason I’ve been unable to sign up for any of the modules I wanted to take is because I needed to pay £700-odd per module and nobody noticed for nearly a year.

They can “potentially” look into waiving the fees if I can prove that I’ll be teaching next year. Never mind that I’ve been teaching throughout the time I should’ve been studying for the damn qualification, or that a cursory look at any employment records should prove that quite comfortably. It’s nonsense.

But even then I’d probably be OK about it if someone from the uni took responsibility, said they were sorry for messing me about And let me do the strawberry floating studying that I want to do. I’m still willing to pay the course fees if it’s absolutely necessary. But there has been no apology for the error, or for the time I’ve had to spend trying to get this sorted out, or for the knock on effects this has had on other aspects of my life. If I’d known that I had to pay back in September, I would’ve done. I was prepared for it. But I was told in writing that I wouldn’t have to, that everything was sorted and that my place on the course was secure. And I’ve now spent months of my life trying to sort out what should’ve been clearly obvious to see.

TL;DR I feel like I’ve been messed around and I’m not happy about it. :lol:

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Red
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PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by Red » Fri Sep 11, 2020 11:24 am

Submitted my MA dissertation so that's university over with. Been a bit of a slog between the pandemic and death in the family and all archives and libraries being closed, but I'm happy enough with how it turned out in the end. It's 150 pages long somehow. They can't say I didn't try. No idea if it'll go well with the markers but I'm not going to stress over that, what's done is done.

Bit of an anticlimax pressing submit on an online portal on my own rather than getting it bound and handing it in physically and then heading to the pub with everyone else. Bought some of my favourite beers and have booked the weekend in Dumfries to celebrate.

Used this fantastic picture as my cover image too (minus watermark)

Image

Coconut Bob wrote:You come across as feminine as a cave troll so its no wonder you have little concept of the way females should behave.

Instagram: @amygmatic
Corazon de Leon

PostRe: The Higher Education Megathread
by Corazon de Leon » Fri Sep 11, 2020 12:28 pm

Congratulations Red, submitting a thesis is a massive achievement even before all the adverse circumstances you mention. Well played. Loving the Hephaestus vibes from that pic as well!


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