Always One Step Behind
I always seem to get screwed with things. I buy an iPod at full price, and the next week I find out Harvard will give employees a decent academic discount. I but various seasons of DVD’s for a tv show and then find out a box-set is coming out that includes “extras”. I buy plane tickets and then fare-wars begin and prices drop.
Today I discovered that Harvard is now offered a Masters in Management (as opposed to the MBA program at Harvard Business School that I’m ineligible for as a Harvard employee). When I graduated in June, I received a Graduate Certificate in Management (8 graduate level courses). The new Masters program is the same exact program but requires 12 courses instead.
Conceivable, you’d think I could simply re-enroll, take the 4 more classes and come out with a Masters degree. Well, I got an email today from some fellow recent graduates who said they contacted Harvard about doing just that but were told that EXISTING certificate students (which I was merely 3 months ago) are eligible to switch progams. But graduates are not eligible. If we want to get a Masters, we’ll have to start from scratch and take all 12 courses all over again.
This seems absurd to me. Had I known that a Masters program was in development (which the school must have known by earlier this year when I applied for the Certificate), I would have waited. But they never informed me.
Perhaps there is just some confusion and I am allowed to transfer the credits? I mean, these courses are the exact same ones I’d be taking over again: same materials, same professors.
Wow – I feel really pissy and whiny today.
1 Comment(s)
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Sweetie, you might want to change that first sentence. I thought the blog was taking an entirely different direction. I feel so cheated.
As to your ill-timed spending… if it really is within a reasonable time frame, take your receipts and your baubles back to wherever you got them and very nicely explain the situation. Many times places will adjust the price for you. If they won’t, and it’s feasible (ie: the ipod) return the damn thing and just buy it again with your i.d. card at the discounted price.
You of course have to factor in whether the time spent in line, telling your tale of woe and so forth, is worth the savings though.