A matter of life and 4

Saturday morning I slept in. While sipping hot chocolate and checking emails, I ran across one from the Registrar's office. Oh boy, I wondered, is this an all-students email or just for a few?

Hi Sharon:

Oh boy! Just for me!

Per my voicemail message, it is imperative that you come to our office to meet

with Mrs. ----- and myself to discuss your graduation credit requirements.

Currently we are showing that the credits you have completed/currently enrolled in

will not meet the 124 total credit hours required to graduate.

Whaaaaaat....

This matter must be attended to immediately, in order to determine if you are to remain a May 2007 graduate.

What!?!

Oh my goodness! What did I miss?

But I have 120 credit hours as of this semester. Do I really need 124?

Goodness, it's Saturday, I can't get back to her till Monday. (What does she mean about my voicemail, anyway - I don't have Grace voicemail... did she call here at home?)

But why didn't we cover this in the Senior Audit?

When am I supposed to go in there and discuss this? Oh, maybe she said in the email...

Please call or email me what time below you can meet:

Monday, March 26^th at 9am, 9:30am, 3pm.

Thank you.

No, thank you! What a great birthday present! March 26th!

The first two minutes were slight shock. Then I thought, "Awww, come on, they have to let me graduate. I didn't know anything about this." The few people I told were instantly concerned. But what was there to worry about? I was graduating. There was either a mistake or something we could easily work out. I had given up worrying about things (well, mostly) somewhere back in Argentina.

This feeling prevailed throughout Saturday, Sunday, and into Monday morning, when, during a few moments' free time, I happened to run across that number 124 on the Grace site under Academic Policy and then in the Student Handbook - which all students are to read, memorize, and quote with loving accent. I began experiencing hallucinations of summer classes, extremely rapid independent studies, and even a 4-credit fall semester.

After 5 minutes in the Registrar's office, after laying the groundwork of my innocence and preparing to do intense battle for my graduation date, we - the Registrar and I - discovered that those last four tricky credits had been found. I just can't tell you where or I'd have to shoot you.

Now how did this happen? Well, my major is pretty small -- only 70 credit hours, plus liberal arts requirements. I skipped a semester back in Spring '05 to be home with my siblings. Then after study abroad, I petitioned and got 9 hours worth of overseas classes counted toward liberal arts. Between this, my ignorance, and several perfectly timed faculty and staff responsibility shifts, nothing showed up till just last weekend.

So a note of warning to all people in college or thinking about it: you may have all your required classes in, but make sure you know if your school has a minimum credit requirement for graduation. And try to beat my time of 6 weeks prior to graduation for finding out about it.