The Sun Never Sets on British Papers

Did you know that the sun starts to rise at 4 a.m. in the summer in England? I had no idea I was far enough north to see light so early!

And yes, I was up that late – err, early, once the sun starts rising it’s a new day – because I was finishing my paper.

Actually, I wasn’t finishing the paper. The paper proper had been done for several hours, 131 footnotes and all. I was finishing all of the bogus supplementary stuff we had to turn it with our “portfolio” on top of the paper. Speaking of bogus schemes…I chose this program because I knew it would get me into parliament. I have loved every moment of parliament. But as for the efficiency of Arcadia University as a whole…I’ve been less then impressed. I refer to the following tale as an example.

We all knew our paper was due today. Most everyone assumed this meant “at class this evening at 6 p.m., hand in your paper as you come through the door.” Then we received an email Monday saying the paper was due by 5 p.m, at the main office, which is 45 minutes travel time away from class.

Since this paper was assigned to internship students, who all work on Wednesdays, most of them until 5 o’clock, and then travel directly to class…the deadline seemed artificial. I happily emailed the advisor and asked if we could turn them in at class instead, maybe e-mailing her before 5 to prove it was done. She responded: I’m afraid you’ll have to submit 3 hard copies of your project before 5:00pm tomorrow.I have to get your project to your co-ordinator and supervisor as soon as possible.”

Let’s think logically about this for a minute. She works until 5. She has to be at the university at 6. It’s a 45 minute trip. Many of the coordinators/supervisors will be at that class. I seriously doubt that in her spare 15 minutes she will be able to sort all of the submitted projects, teleport to everyone to whom the papers needs to be delivered, and then make it to class! If she waited an hour, students could print the paper off at work and bring it to class, or they could get to class a few minutes early and print it off in the library, and turn it in. Instead, she is forcing 40 internship students to ask to leave work early to turn in the paper, to go seriously out of their way to print it at the university and then return to the office to turn it in a day early (since they won’t have time during the Wednesday work day to print it off) or to pay several pounds to print it off at an internet café. Furthermore, in my case particularly, the person she needs to give my paper to is currently in Hungary and asked me to e-mail it to him anyway. In any case, she didn’t need my paper at exactly 5 o’clock!

This is one example of Arcadia’s bureaucratic stupidity. I have several more but I’ll save them for later….maybe after my grades are posted.

If you want to read a 23-page treatise (which I think is fairly well written, excepting the last few pages, when I lost my commitment to excellence so it loses some of its luster) on improving a Muslim sense of citizenship in the UK through educational initiatives…e-mail me and I’ll send you a copy. Depending on what bulletins I see in the poly sci department this semester, I’m kind of flirting with the idea of revising it a bit and submitting it to an undergraduate research publication. Though, if I did that, I might have to compete with Brad's North Korea paper...and Muslims in the UK pale in comparison.

In any case, I'm free!!! For the next 10 days, I can enjoy London, without care! If any of my friends want particular souvenirs, tell me, elsewise I already have things in mind for almost all of you, and am going on a shopping spree Saturday. (I’m coming in almost $1000 under budget – wheee!)