Room scheduling frequently leaves me feeling stuck on stupid. Courses with no enrollment one day suddenly have 20 people enrolled the next and everyone wonders why no classroom was assigned. Students on a MWF schedule come to school on Tuesday and wonder why there is another class in their assigned room. Likewise with the late start people who are here the first day of classes. By the end of the first week I’ve had so many people question my competence that I feel permanently stuck on stupid.
I’ve only done final exam scheduling once and it was the worse experience of my MCC career. (Don’t make me tell you the nightmares that were my everyday life at UR!) Final exam scheduling made me feel stuck on a potential nervous breakdown. Stuck on stupid is much more comfortable. I yearn for the day I can sit back and revel in being stuck on stupid when doing final exam scheduling.
That day is not here.
In the throes of room changes it occurred to me to check the documentation for the final exam scheduling process and see when that nightmare was scheduled to begin. The first item in the final exam scheduling timeline says: “2 weeks before classes begin… “. What? I thought I was being so proactive in looking at the documentation weeks before I needed to do anything. Now I find I’m already a week behind. For the love of God, someone feel sorry for me, please.
I scurried and sent in the request to have the Final Exam Request Form activated. You will find it on the Faculty Services menu in Banner Self Service under, “Schedule a Final Exam”. Unless your exam is a departmental exam -- same exam given for every section of the same subject/course -- you must submit your request(s) electronically no later than Friday, September 23, 2011. This is a hair pulling and tearful process for me so please submit your requests on time. I’m told that requests coming in after the deadline need to be given Saturday time slots for their finals, but I’m not sure what to do with requests coming in late so I’ll probably just hide them in a drawer. Please be on time.
After you are done reading this article and copying it so you can take it home and use it as proof that you work with idiots, log on to self service and request your final exams. That will bring you in way ahead of the deadline and make me one step closer to the luxury of being stuck on stupid.
Deborah Benjamin
Registration and Records
09/14/2011 |