I now NEED this t-shirt: The front reads "When you find yourself in the company of a halfling and an ill-tempered Dragon, remember, you do not have to outrun the Dragon..." and the back of the shirt reads "...you just have to outrun the halfling."



Every University Has its Bureaucracy

So, yesterday, I had my adventures in Rice beauracracy. Let's go through the system:

1. I show up to register for classes, which requires me to meet with my advisor. My advisor proceeds to talk me out of one optimization class and into another - all the while expressing profound disappointment that I was limiting myself to 1-2 classes per semester and not yet picked a topic for the PhD he is sure I am going to start in three years from now while expressing excitement that I was interested in taking on a research project for 6 credits possibly this summer (very free labor). I wonder how much paperwork I will create at NASA by agreeing to switching classes, but decide to go for it.

2. I go back down and get a new registration form. Yes, you heard me, a form. Because first semester students are required to manually fill out a form, get it signed by there advisor, and hand deliver it to the Registrar's Office.

2. I head to the Registrar's Office, expecting it to be not such a big deal, because returning students were allowed to register the previous semester and there aren't many students who start school in the Spring. How wrong I was! There was about a 30 minute line.

3. Confused, I query some of the waiting students why there is a line. Finally I strike up a conversation with a cute, but bitter, 5th year senior from Idaho (who informs me that there are less than 20 5th year seniors for all of Rice - I guess when you charge $30,000 per year and the vast majority of people there study completely unemployable things like Southeast Asian Basket Weaving Philosophy, there is more impitus to graduate on time).

4. There is apparently an online registration system. By online, it means the students type in their course requests on a web page, and then PRINT IT OUT. They take it to their advisor to sign it. Then they hand carry it to the Registrar's Office, and the registrar manually enters everything (including a semesterly address update) into the computers. The students were gushing about what an improvement this was over the previous system. I am confused and wonder if they don't understand the concept of the world wide web. I am also told that I came to the line at a very opportune time, because it was between classes (apparently the Friday line - the last day of registration - will like involve a 3+ hour wait).

5. When I finally get my turn, I discover that my account has a "billing" and "health insurance" hold. But I can't resolve them, because, well, the Cashier's Office closes at 3 p.m. (but, gushes the Registrar, they open "really early" at 8:30). They manage to pre-enroll me for the class though.

6. Frustrated, I head back to the Mech Eng. building to set up my computer account because I can't fix my enrollment status without it. Now, you have to apply for an email account from a campus computer on the internal network. However, the vast majority of campus computers require you to LOG IN with your email account to use. This seems to be a paradox to me. However, the secretary politely informs me that most clusters have one or two old Macintosh's (of the AE library variety) that don't require a log in, so I can use them to apply for my account. I visited 4 computer labs and have yet to find one of these Macintosh's that work well enough for me to use Netscape 4 on (the only web browser that can accept the certificates from the e-mail account server). I leave unsuccessful.

7. I decide to head to the next marvel of campus efficiency, the Police Station -- who happens to also dole out student ID's and parking permits. I don't understand the necessity of parking permits as there were several free visitors lots EXACTLY next to the paid ($50) commuter lots which all service Rice stadium. There are only about 5,000 people in the whole campus community and about 10,000 spots for the stadium. I don't understand charging for parking when it obviously wasn't a commodity and there were tons of open spots (including free visitor parking).

8. After deciding to wait on a parking permit to figure out if NASA will buy me one or not (they will, as it turns out), I go to get my student ID. Now you may have read about the con-artist who impersonated a Rice student for weeks, eating at the cafeteria, getting a student ID, and walking on to the track team -- well, I now understand how this is possible. The graduate advisor gave me a letter to take to get an ID, saying I was a new student. She didn't sign the letter, and it was printing on a white sheet of paper. I hand this over to the police officer, and without even asking me to show her photo ID or even reading the letter, she snaps my pictures, prints up the ID, and sets it to key into multiple buildings (no, they don't have online registration but they have managed to do away with silly key locks, something GT never was able to accomplish while I was there).

So, that was my adventure. For this waste of time, NASA is paying $3,500. Next week: how to drop a class (the first one I registered for before my prof changed his mind) and setting up e-mail #2.