I, Curtis

I just spent the last hour or so with the “Transfer Equivalency System” and now I’m a bit cranky, cynical and non believing in a fair transfer of credits.

• Art Appreciation (ART111) is a SURVEY of ART, but covers almost no Art history, therefore, it SHOULD ALWAYS be transferred as “Survey of Art” not as “Intro to Art History”. These courses are used interchangeably, they should not be.
• When is Visual Basic the same as FORTRAN? In my experience, never, so why from some schools do you accept VB (CSC 139) as Intro to Fortran?
• I’m sure it takes someone with great competence to pass Creative Writing II, but do you really think it has the same care for mechanics as English Composition II? I personally don’t. Your experience may vary.
• Descriptive Astronomy (AST111)? Is it Astronomy (ASTR111), Natural Science Elective (NSCI 198/199), or Free Elective (GSTU200)?
• BASIC 1 and BASIC 2… transfers as “Free Elective”, not even “Basic PC Literacy” for the effort?
• Finally, you let some yahoo take VB programming in place of FORTRAN, but you won’t let my transfer Creative Writing I and/or II as Creative Writing. WTF is with that?

Yesterday, a Saturday, the responsible parties (not sure exactly who) at Fayetteville State University, evaluated my transcripts and transferred 102 credit hours, more than I expected (expected about 87 – 89). Only 9 of my courses (27 hours) were transferred as actual courses (rest were “Free Elective”). The transfer was not conducted in accordance with the Comprehensive Articulation Agreement, nor with the most of the college’s policies. The transfers were conducted haphazardly. Some of the most notable blunders of this transfer would be the transfer of MAT161 from Gaston College as an elective course, whereas if it would have been from CPCC it would have transferred correctly as MATH123 at FSU. Both schools teach the course the same way, from the same NCCCS CCL. The course not transferring is completely arbitrary. There are about a dozen such cases involving CPCC and Gaston courses. There are a lot from UNCC that were affected as well, but I don’t have such hard core evidence as the CCL to prove that the transfers were done arbitrarily for that institution.

I am attempting to work with my interim advisor to get this corrected before I am passed to my departmental advisor, who will be assigned when my new department chair accepts me.

 

Here’s what did transfer:

Origin	Course	Title	Transferred As
Gaston	PSY150	General Psychology	PSYC210
	PSY237	Social Psychology	PSYC360
CPCC	ART111	Art Appreciation	ART210
	SOC213	Sociology of the Family	SOCI330
UNCC	ACCT2101	Principles of Accounting I	ACCT211
	ITCS1214	Introduction to Computer Science 1	CSC100
	ENGL1102	English Composition II	ENGL120
	MATH1165	Discreet Math/Structures I	MATH150
	PSYC3151	Abnormal Psychology	PSYC422

At Fayetteville I was going to fill out a form to substitute their “Intro to Communication” requirement for the “Interpersonal Communication” that I already have and I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t out of line in requesting the adaptation, so I did a Google. I came back with this blog: http://suburbdad.blogspot.com/2006/04/substitutions-from-space.html

What could be better than the words of an academic dean

This entry is pretty hilarious, but the blog itself has a serious side. This dean has been blogging longer than I have been, and he seems to be better at it (or maybe administration is more fun than being a student :: notes potential career path ::).

I have received an acceptance letter from Fayetteville State University, but I am now waiting for my prospective department (Psychology) to accept me and allow me to declare my program. No credits have been evaluated yet, but the advisor in the Transfer and Advisement center is attempting to put a little pressure on the admissions and registrar’s offices for me.

When I was first admitted to college so many years ago, a student got admitted first, then got access to the registration and records system. Times have changed. It now appears that when an application is “viable” and the application file is “complete”, then the access is granted, but there still is that nervous question… “will I be accepted?”. It is interesting to be a “pending” student at Fayetteville State University and seeing my record before its been fully built (transfer credits, etc). The record is completely naked, like a newly admitted freshman or something.