October 20, 2004

How I Lost My Spleen

I'm not talking about Taylor's (though they did mislead me about my exemptions prior to registration). I'm talking about APIIT, the college that's trying to get a University in front of its name. Two words: God forbid. See? I care about this so much I even capitalised God. Onwards to the main body!

How I Lost My Spleen:

From the lecturers, who read from the slides, which can be downloaded from the student web portal anyway. Why the hell am I paying you to read to me?

From the lecturers again, who don't answer the class when questioned about parts of the syllabus we don't understand. Standard answer? "Read the textbook." Why the hell am I paying you again?

From dealing with incompetent-and-sometimes-downright-stupid admin staff, who also manage to be rude at the same time. It's almost like being in secondary school again, except in secondary school I don't pay money to be patronised. They've got the fast food system down to a pat, it's all self-service there.

From the hopeless admin staff, who actually gave us the marking scheme instead of the exam questions for our semester finals, resulting in a delay of about an hour. After which we were given a set of questions, half of them about topics we weren't even taught in class.

From lecturers again, specifically Caroline, who waltzed in after the exam fiasco and demanded that we sit for the exam, which we would fail if we did. Her reasoning? "You are responsible for covering all the topics whether the lecturer taught them or not." Thank god people like her aren't running the country. Oh wait...

From supreme bad timing, which was exactly a day after the above-mentioned exam fiasco. We were sitting for another paper, and the stipulated time was 3 hours. An hour into the paper, an admin staff came in and told us it was actually a two-hour paper. Which is a fancy way of saying, "You're screwed."

From lecturers, who can't make up their minds on what they want to see in our projects. For our Business Research Methods subject, our belovedest lecturer changed her mind 3 times, resulting in mass confusion and general curses (very bad curses) towards her direction. It's not that we're excessively hard on her, it's just that the last time she changed her mind was 3 hours before the project was due, and it wasn't humanly possible to give her what she wanted in 3 hours.

Once more, from 'lecturers' who 'teach' some of the subjects. On the excessive usage of inverted commas, it's because the 'lecturers' themselves are sometimes confused with what they're saying in class, but they keep talking anyway. Mark Twain said, "It's better to close your mouth and remain a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt." Obviously, no one reads Mark Twain anymore. So what do you call a 'lecturer' who can't 'teach'?

Finally, the absolute unfairness of the rules. APIIT students in KL weren't allowed to wear jeans or capri pants, but APIIT student in the now-closed DH branch were allowed to violate those very same rules with impunity. (I had friends in DH, thank you) We were also expected to speak English all the time, even when I'm in the lift conversing with my granma on the phone. My granma who doesn't speak English. And the lecturers used words like 'jeopardisation' and 'best level'.

Sometimes, the irony writes itself.

Towards the end of my Higher Diploma, I was ill for 4 months, (not consecutively though) and that was probably a blessing in disguise, since I didn't have to go to the place and see the people there. It gave me a headache just to look at the place, and talking to the people there made me want to vomit buckets of blood. (translate to Cantonese pls)

Anyways, this is all from my personal experience. I'm sure plenty of APIIT grads have had a great time in APIIT. *snickers*

9 comments:

hyelbaine said...

Well, everyone always something to bad to say about our private tertiary places of learning. It just mean's that these places are no where near as good as what they keep advertising about :P

Cheers!!! :D

Kervin said...

The situation is also as bad in the public universities as well but catch is we pay less than private college people. Once an admin staff delayed out exam because a half hour before the actual sitting time, he came in and said "The papers are still being printed so sorry for the delay" Time 8p.m., wait 1 1/2 hours, mood after totally grumpy and cursing the uni. Well all things have their hiccup, lecturers also have their faults (reading aloud like a parrot from their own slides some even downloaded from book sites is a VERY common occurence anywhere). Well sorry for your spate of bad luck, someone should straighten the colleges in the country, any takers?? :)

Lancelot95 said...

It couldnt be THAT bad right? If it was THAT bad .. how come they are still in the Education section of The Star advertising all their glory ? The new campus maybe while the old campus conprise of all grudging staffs not selected for the new campus ? :O

Horror stories of colleges everywhere, this must be one of the worst I have ever heard. No wonder you were so happy after the exam knowing you will never again need to step into this place. hehe

Saffron said...

@Hyelbaine:
I've nveer actually heard of a college worse than mine. I mean, seriously, I've never even heard of a secondary school worse than mine. Worst 3 years of my life. Except for the food. The food is good.

@Kerwin:
Thanks for stopping by. :) Your experience's alnost as bad as mine, but hey, at least you didn't pay as much as I did to be treated like shit.

I'm thinking maybe I'm a masochist.

@lance:
Now you see why I keep getting sick in that place. It's the air I tell you! ;)

Whenever people talk about colleges I give them my honest opinion, which usually doesn't happen cos we're all Asians and we generally try to make things sound better than they are, but I figured I owe APIIT nothing.

@extinguisher:
Heh, now I see why you say there's a lot of stress. Must be great to vent, ya?

Pebbles said...

I stumbled upon your blog and rather fascinated by the way you write. You write like a male, that was what I told my friend.

Another thing that struck me was you also like God of Small Things like me. One of my many favourites.

By the way, you take good pictures too.

It is because I wanted to post you a message that I signed for this blog. Something that I never do.

Is APIIT really that bad?

Saffron said...

Wow, I'm very flattered. Thanks for the kind comments. :)

I was told to disable anonymous posting after the Jeff Ooi fiasco, so sorry for the inconvenience. As for writing like a male, I get that a lot. I think it's because I used to pretend to be a guy online and it sorta rubbed off, I dunno.

Hmmm, fellow masochist I see. :) I generally avoid depressing stories, so I don't like to re-read GoST a lot. It still gets to me. :(

Thanks for dropping by. I really appreciate it.

Saffron said...

Forgot to say, everything I say about APIIT is true. Figure I don't owe them any favours. :p I'm a Business with IT student though, and the Computer students generally seem to like APIIT better.

Pebbles said...

No worries, the signing up process only took me 3 minutes as the site promises.

As you can see, I am rather hooked currently. ;)

I am so in agreement with you. Reading depressing story is not my favourite past time... but still I have read GoST more than once and still it gets to me...sigh...

http://keptenpebbles.blogspot.com/ In case you want to read my virgin blog... :)

Next you should blog the 10 reasons why you pretend to be a guy on line... hehhehee

Still in APIIT? I am. :)

Saffron said...

It's because I play games and guys like to hit on girls because they think we're desperate enough to talk to them. *grins* Actually, it just makes life easier.

Good god, Business student? I feel for you then. No, seriously, write an opinion piece about APIIT and I'll put one of those trackback thingies in my blog so people'll get a balanced perspective.