The Academic Situation

When I came to the business school on Monday the 6th I found out that all the information that had been communicated to me regarding my class schedule was incorrect. It was my understanding based on information communicated to me last spring that the university runs on a semester system but that the semester is broken up into two 7 week parts: part 1 and part 2. I explained to the university that I am on a quarter system and would like to take all my courses during the first 7 week part of the semester. They said that this was fine. I decided to take two International Relations classes and 1 Econ class since all the MBA class choices they sent me I had already taken during the first year of my program at UW. I confirmed with them last spring that the classes I had chosen were indeed offered during term 1 of the fall semester and it would be no problem to compete my classes by mid November. None of this information is in fact true and I realized all of this when the business school told me that the classes I had selected were in fact 14 week courses and two of them were not even being offered this fall. 

 What actually happened was that the person at the bschool in charge of handling my entire exchange experience sent completely wrong class and schedule information. Starting this year, Koc University put a one-year 10-month MBA program in place of their 2yr full-time program. The two part broken up semester schedule is ONLY for the new 10 month program, but that was not communicated to me. I was sent the class and schedule information for the 10-month program. When I found out about this miscommunication, I told the school that I have travel plans in place and am only able to stay in Turkey until mid November because I had based my entire school and travel schedule on the information that was sent and confirmed with me last spring. 

 In addition to that, the woman in charge of handling every aspect of my exchange situation quit the first day I arrived here. I finally managed to meet and explain what had happened to the two women who run the graduate business school. They are U.S. educated, speak fluent English and are actually competent. They acknowledge that this was a big mistake on the part of the University and now have taken responsibility for my academic situation. They contacted the professors to find classes that I could complete during the shortened time that I am here at school and still get the full 3 credits. I am taking two Econ courses and doing an independent study with a Finance professor. The econ classes are ok, but a lot of what will be taught in the courses I have already learned through previous econ classes I took as an MBA last year or as an undergrad. I feel good about my independent study as it relates to banking and will actually be challenging for me. The disappointing part is that I paid thousands of dollars to the UW for classes and I’m certainly not getting my money’s worth in terms of academics. I expected that coming here, but I did not expect to end up with classes that I wasn’t even going to take in the first place. I realize I am here more for the cultural experience, but given that I paid so much money for the academics is very disappointing. Koc University completely messed up my entire situation for academics, housing and various other things.

Oh ya, I forgot to mention I also got food poisoning the first week I was here.