The Bureaucratic Nightmare at the University of Sydney

Don't be fooled. This is a portal to hell.

Call centres, waits to get through, queues, byzantine rules, very little appeals process and no hope of actually speaking to a real person, certainly not a person who can solve your issue. Centrelink? No, it's Australia's oldest and most venerable institute of higher learning, the University of Sydney. 

The University of Sydney has gleefully embraced the centralised customer service and efficiency plague which has swept across public agencies worldwide. The university no longer sees us as students, but as clients. In the media, students with queries and appeals actually get to go speak to someone in charge of their faculty. No such luxuries at the University of Sydney. All student enquiries are now directed through a central student enquiries centre, where you take a number relating to your enquiry and wait for it to flash on the overhead screens - they use the same exact numbering system as Service NSW (RTA), right down to the weird noises, which left me with a knot of recognition in the pit of my stomach as if I was going to have to sit my driving test again.

Anyway, once you finally get to talk someone - when I was last there, three weeks before semester started, the wait time to see a customer service officer was forty minutes - you're speaking with a very nice and well meaning (well, the person I spoke to was) but seriously overworked and more critically, generalist member of staff. who can help out with things like Opal card applications but for academic matters like credit applications and special consideration, simply can't have the specialised knowledge of courses needed to provide specific information. 

So isn't that the kind of thing you're supposed to be talking to your faculty about? Well, no - you're not allowed to talk to your faculty any more. (I asked, and was told they're not allowed to refer students to their faculties). The university last year reduced the number of faculties from 16 to six and have gone even further with the cost cutting by removing the administration departments, funnelling all the students through the centralised service centre. (In fact, the cost cutting has extended so far that the University's web site hasn't been updated to reflect the change, still listing the original 16 faculties). 

With the loss of specialised staff and services of course comes an end to rational processes and decision making. Staff and faculties are no longer allowed to use logic, nuance or best judgement when making decisions on matters from credit transfers through to students experiencing illness or bereavement; every decision must be funnelled through central bureaucracy, with university rules strictly applied (you had to fly overseas to attend your brother's funeral? You'd better have that essay in the day you return! You were away for five days so five days' extension is all you're going to get). 

But whilst all this is going on, the university has been embarking on a massive building program. Far from being short of cash, the uni is splashing out on fancy new facilities but not actually employing staff to put in them. The focus is on attracting investment and new overseas students; the uni's existing students are like flies at a picnic - an annoying side effect of running a university, not the core business of university itself. (And the administration woes are only the start. Arrive at either of the main campus libraries after 9am and you'll end up sitting on the floor; there are so few desks to meet the needs of the student body). 

The university paid $1.4 million last year to its Vice Chancellor, Michael Spence, so he could read about Centrelink's service woes and think to himself "that's nothing, have a look at what we can do here.". One imagines they're working on getting things so centralised they can do away with having to provide for undergraduate students altogether. It's all very Weberian - if only I was allowed to talk to someone who knows what that means.

If you've had a similar experience you'd like to share, please leave a comment on the form below. 

How To Write Good Essays, By Someone Who Does

I've got a lot of friends heading off to university for the first time this year, and many are worried about that big chunk of university assessment - essays. I know how worried I was this time last year. But whilst I'm no genius and crash and burn in group work, the one thing at uni I've realised I'm good at is writing essays; I consistently score over 90%. I've done this by working out an essay writing method and sticking to it. I can't promise it will give you good marks, but give it a try; it works for me and I hope it will work for you too. What you're doing when you write an essay is working out what you want to say in response to the question, finding academic references that agree with your view, then rewriting them in your own words. Crazy, but that's how it goes.

1. Ideally you'll need to start at least two weeks in advance of the due date. Read the question. Make sure you understand all the key terms - now is the time to contact your tutor if there's anything you're unsure of. Read the marking guide, re-read the question, make sure you understand exactly what's being asked.

2. Time to hit the library. Research. Read widely. For a first year essay, you'll need to cite between 8-15 sources. Read more than this, as you won't know at this stage what is going in the essay and what will be left out. Take copious notes; don't assume highlighting or remembering what you've read will be enough. Taking notes will help you understand and digest the information. Make sure you keep a record of everything you've read, including page numbers. You'll need them later.

3. I like to leave a day or two between research and the first draft, to work on something else or simply let my mind subconsciously work over the information. Anyway, first draft time. I get all my notes together and then just write as fast as I can, not stopping to consider whether what I'm writing is any good or not. Just let it all out. You can always edit later, no matter how poorly written it is; at least the basic idea is there. It's impossible to edit a blank page. I always do the first draft in one go; of course, this is easier with a first year essay of 2000 words than a third year 5000 word whopper, but if you've made it to third year I'm going to assume you know what you're doing by now. Just make sure you include those references with page numbers; trust me, it is a lot easier to put them in now than to try to track them down later.

4. Again, I like to leave it a couple of days before I work on the second draft. I open up a new word document, then read through my first draft, pasting over the bits that work and extensively re-writing the ones that don't. It usually takes at least as long as the first draft. This is where I try to get it right. It's important not to assume the lecturer or marker knows what you're talking about - they will assume you don't know what you're talking about, and mark you accordingly. You have to spell everything out. I got tripped up on this point many times until I got the hang of it. You may find you need to do more research. That's fine, it's all part of the process. As shown by the teeth of the British, the floods in Bangladesh and the human penis, even God doesn't always get it right first time around.

5. Print the thing out and give it a proof read. You've run it through spell check already but have you missed any punctuation? Clunkers of sentences that just don't work? Fix all that up, then if at all possible send it to a friend to read over as well, even if they've no particular knowledge of your subject (actually, that's even better - if you can make the topic clear to someone without any knowledge of the subject, you're in pretty good shape).

6. One last polish. Don't worry, you're nearly there! I'm usually up to this stage the day before the essay is due. Double check your bibliography complies with the appropriate referencing system, that you're happy with the wording, and any other little niggles. Fix them, print out your final copy in duplicate, save one and hand the other in. It's over. Go get yourself some chocolate or a glass of wine or one of Kylie Minogue's backing dancers to have sex with, however it is you reward yourself.

I hope this helps, and if you've any questions, please drop me a line in the comments.

It Shouldn't Be This Hard To Get Into Uni

Well, I've been offered a place in social science at the University of Newcastle. Yay! Don't congratulate me yet, though. Congratulate me when I graduate.

Actually, scratch that. Congratulate me when I am finally able to accept my offer. I bloody deserve it. This simple task, which should have taken seconds, has required every spare moment of my time over the past few weeks. I don't want to hear anyone complain about big corporations. Forget it. Imagine a massive telco had vigorous jungle sex with a massive bank. (Go on, visualise it. I'll wait). Then imagine this corporate nookie produced a massive hybrid corporation with slow processes, poorly coordinated systems, and staffed entirely with people sacked from the public service for being just a bit dozy.

Now imagine that but worse, and that's what it has been like dealing with the University of Newcastle.

Monday night I logged onto the uni website as instructed, thinking accepting my offer would be as simple as hitting the submit button. But when I did so, I got an error message stating "your email address must contain the characters . and @". That's funny I thought, I'm sure it did. But I checked it again...and again. I tried a different email address. No dice. Same error. I gave up in frustration and vowed to call IT in the morning.

Tuesday morning, on the phone to IT. I followed all their instructions. I tried logging in using Firefox and Chrome. I waited on hold. Eventually the IT guy told me that he'd never seen this problem before, but he'd look into it and email me to let me know how it turned out.

Wednesday morning, no email. I call general admissions and explain the problem. I get transferred a bit. Everyone is very nice, but they've never seen this problem before. Eventually I give them permission to accept the offer on my behalf. Okay, they say, they'll email me when that's done.

I'm trying to fit all this in with full time work, I might add, and by now I've spent several hours on the computer and on the phone with it. Thursday, no email, so I ask DH to call on my behalf. They can't help him, they say. Acceptance needs to be done online. That not working? Send them an email.

The thing that's grating a bit here is after I applied to the University of Newcastle, way back in September, they started mailing me. A lot. A glossy brochure thanking me for applying. A circular on their great services. An annual calendar. A reminder to look out for my acceptance. A notification on info day. All shiny and helpful. It was like accepting an invitation to a colleague's barbecue, and them thanking you profusely. No worries, you say, looking forward to it. But then they continue to seek you out every day in the lead up to the barbecue, more and more enthusiastically, until finally you start to feel so creeped out you don't want to go at all.

So I'm a more than a little cross that the uni can throw all this money on PR that will end up in the recycling bin, and can't spend a little bit more on systems and staff in enrollments. It's now past the deadline for acceptance. It's past the deadline to change my preferences to study at another university, a path I now dearly wish I could take. I've no idea if I'll be studying this year, or if I applied to uni and all I got was this lousy blog post.