The $175 Central Michigan University Tour

… It wasn’t actually a tour, per-se. I guess the tour of the campus itself is for first year students only. Go figure! The $175 that was paid was the new student fee..

The Arrival

I got the beasties off to school early today to get a head start on going to CMU to get my orientation. I had no clue as to what is actually going to happen, so I was a bit nervous. What kind of schedule was I going to be looking at? I stopped at a gas station, and the only source of protein that was non-dairy that they had were nuts and beef jerky. Not really the ideal breakfast, but I didn’t want to eat anything heavy before going in anyway.

I got to the school 20 minutes early and parked in lot 8, the lot that’s free on orientation days. I got an excellent parking space, having gotten there nice and early. I walked to Bovee community center, where the orientation was to be held. I knew right where to go, because of my 50 cent trip earlier this week.

I got to the lobby where I registered, put on a name badge, and went to the ‘Maroon Room’ where the Business students were congregating. I registered again with the Business Advisors and obtained my packet of information. The ladies that registered me seemed to be knowledgeable about my needs. I sat down and chit-chatted with the people next to me as they took their seats, named Amber and Chris. We talked about our pre-transfer college experiences and such.

The Orientation Begins

The two ladies introduced themselves as Annie and Karen. Both were very nice and began to explain the transfer process. The first half of the orientation was about the university program. Essentially, the general education portions that everybody in the room was required to take. I had satisfied all of these at Delta college, or so I had thought. I looked at the papers given to me – I was missing one course from the ‘third semester’ block. The class outlined was Business Law, one which I had not taken in the past except in high school. I double checked the MACRAO transfer sheet that I had printed off, and it didn’t list any such class.

So, I was set to take that class at CMU, amongst my other classes. Not a problem. Most of the other information they were talking about didn’t apply to me at this point, since I had taken all the math I needed, all the rest of the prerequisites and so forth.

The ID Office

So we went down to the ID office and waited to get our pictures taken. A woman came out to the hallway and told us to line up against the wall. Visions of elementary school danced in my head. She proceeded to pull out a massive CMU ID card and show us the card. It doubles as an atm card, gets you into the library, and so on. All I could think about is that the form of ID that she had over her head would be perfect if Publishers Clearing House ever came to my house with a gigantic check. All I’d need is a gigantic pen to endorse it with and I’d have it all.

Thankfully I was at the beginning of the line, so I got my picture taken nearly right away. This gave me time to loiter around the doughnut table they had setup for us in the hallway by the conference rooms.

Orientation Continues

Everyone got back to the conference room and the ladies continued talking. The information became much more interesting as they delved into topics that were relevant to my interests. Then they mentioned the draft of the schedule that they had put in everyone’s packets.

The what?

There was no draft schedule in my packet.

I raised my hand – they knew of the lapse of data in my packet, and it was something that they were working on just prior to us arriving. Apparently there were two classes, my second accounting class and my introduction to computer information systems class that needed to be substituted for CMU-style classes of a similar type. Not a problem, they assured me, their assistant would be around later with the information.

I looked at the rest of the information. There were 4 classes that I needed to take all in a row, all at once, as a block. These were required for the degree. The students in each block will be the same in every class – there were 7 blocks, of which only classes in block 5 were available, so that’s what I was assigned.

Grawn Hall

We went over as a group to Grawn Hall, where the majority of my classes will be taken. On the way we stopped to pick up our student ID’s. It’s not a horrible picture, but I wish I had removed my hoodie before getting the picture taken.

We arrived at the Hall and went to a special room that the Business administration staff had reserved for the Business students. The rest of the groups were in the computer lab area, and there were apparently too many transfer students for computers in this area. I guess this was the privilege to having the orientation continue in the building that services my specialization.

I opened the portal and logged on to my account. I quickly went to the schedule, and got it moments before the assistant handed me the paper. This is what it read:

Mondays and Wednesdays:

Business Law – 10:00am – 10:50am
Integrated Financial Analysis – 5:00pm-6:15pm

Tuesdays and Thursdays:

Integrated Supply Chain Management – 3:30pm-4:45pm
Integrated Marketing Management – 5:00pm-6:15pm

Thursday Only:

Integrated Business Experience – 7:00pm-8:50pm

Fridays:

Business Law – 10:00am – 10:50am

Needless to say, I would rather have earlier classes. And I didn’t relish the idea of driving 80 minutes on Fridays for a 50 minute class. I accepted the schedule as-is, and filled out a form with a request to basically ‘waitlist’ for the earlier classes. If I could get into an earlier block, I would be able to have earlier classes and have nights free. I had no answer for business law at the time.

Meeting the Professor

One of the questions I had was about a policy that the college had. If you had over 56 credits, you have to have a major declared. If you don’t, your account will be put on ‘hold’ and no grades will be given for any classes you take. This is the same type of hold that they put on grades if you don’t pay parking tickets or whatever.

I asked the advisors if I should go and sign for my Accounting Information Systems major now, since I was already on campus. They weren’t quite sure but said that if I’d like to try, I could go do it that day. I simply didn’t want to have any troubles with administrative issues once I started.

I didn’t figure I’d meet anyone but the advisers today, so I didn’t dress to impress. They specifically state to dress casually and comfortably in the orientation information. While I didn’t dress down quite so far as, say, the girl that sat in front of me where you could see her bra and underwear, I didn’t feel particularly well made up in my t-shirt and jeans. I was surprised when I was told to meet with a PhD that teaches in the department, not an assistant that handles paperwork.

I walked to the office and knocked at the door. I introduced myself to a Dr. Bromley. This, by far, was the best part of the day. He got the paperwork necessary to get signed to major in Accounting Information Systems. We talked about business, why I was there, my job, and so forth. He talked about the numbers of people that are graduated in this program each year. If I had problems with registration, or issues with financial aid or whatever he said to call him and he’d help. He said I should make an appointment to have another meeting with him, and I very surely will. I was very impressed.

Lunch

I had a coupon for some free food, so I went to the cafeteria and selected a grill item. The cafeteria is very nice. I ordered a sirloin burger with a large pop, and it was as good as an applebees burger at the least. It wasn’t that pricey either, at $6 for the meal. I bet I’ll spend a bunch of money eating there.

At Home

I had called Jolene to tell her the schedule and everything, and she mentioned that I should maybe try to get the Business Law class taken care of via Delta or another community college. I went home and searched for the equivalency, and registered for the class. It’s an online class, which extends through vacation. There will be times when I will have to do a little homework on vacation, but I’m not worried about this in the least. It’s a 1 month, accelerated class. I then called the advisers at CMU to ensure that what I was doing was ok, and they said it was.

This put me at a problematic point, however. With the Business Law class at CMU dropped, I would only have 11 credits. You need 12 credits to be fulltime at college, and receive aid for fulltime attendance.

I chose a political class, since one of my ideas for a minor is to minor in political science. The idea is that accountants work in the government as well, so it could be beneficial to my job prospects My new schedule is as follows: