The Beginning

So we arrived at Delta College for our meeting with the Director of Financial Aid, David Urbaniak, 10 minutes early.  He came out and introduced himself to us and then we waited for the Academic Adviser, Jessica Miller.  I like Jessica, she’s one of the few helpful staff that I’ve found at Delta.  Should you find yourself in need of advising, be sure to ask for her first at Delta.

The meeting began with a brief overview of the current status – that I was going to be essentially billed for the classes I’m currently taking because of the fact that I’m not in a program currently.  The reason I’m not in a program currently is because an Associates in Science degree was sent to me already, despite me not indicating that this is what I wanted to do.

When confronted with the idea that I never requested this from Jolene, who works in the registrar’s office, he simply stated that he ‘couldn’t speak for another person or department’ and that she stated that I requested my degree to be sent to me as soon as possible.

This is not the case; I provided my substitution request sheet to Jolene in the registrars office and requested she put the substitution through.  We even talked about graduation, and before I left I asked her to confirm that this should be all I need for graduation.  She did affirm this. My witness, also named Jolene, was sitting in the waiting chair across the way from Jolene’s desk, overhearing our conversation.

A Lack of Responsibility

Throughout this whole process nobody has taken much in the way of responsibility or ownership for the issues I’ve faced.  I’ve spent most of a year dealing with this, and mistakes have been very certainly made.  All it would have taken  to make this ‘better’ is an acknowledgment that something wrong happened in the process.

During this meeting, like in every other meeting I’ve had with Delta’s support staff, David did not take responsibility for the issue.  He did take ownership of it, and wanted to have this meeting in order to fix my issue – which I appreciate.  He stated that he didn’t want to assign blame, which is fine – but there was a lot of it that needed to be assigned.

I suppose it really comes down to people skills issues.  Being conciliatory does not necessarily mean that you have to accept all of the blame for the past, but perhaps a glimpse of being sorry that I’ve been through this for this amount of mistakes would have been appreciated.

The Result

Essentially, if I said “I do not plan to take any more classes at Delta College” they wanted me to pay them back their aid.  If I said “I plan on taking more classes at Delta College to pursue a 3rd Associates Degree”, even if I’m lying, they’ll grant me the grace to “continue receiving aid” for the classes that I currently am enrolled in.

So, in essence, they encouraged me to lie to continue receiving aid, in lieu of fixing their mistake about sending me the Degree before I asked for it.

I am now pursuing an Associates in Management of something or another.  I don’t really know what program it is, nor do I really care.

What’s Next

A whole new set of paperwork has been initiated to get me moved into this program, effective from the beginning of the last semester.  If past experiences hold, something will go wrong and I will need to continue to visit the Delta College staff to fix their errors and oversights.

The Associates in Science degree that I received in March is valid and will continue to be.

Graduation will be fine and should not be a problem.

Graduation, however, needs to be fully coordinated with Jolene in the registrars office, the same person who pushed through a Degree when I asked her to push through a course substitution request for graduation.  Then when asked she did the ole CYA manuver (Cover Your Ass, for the uninitiated). This delights me to no end.

I just want this to be over.