Bizarre Letter of complaint to Uni

Here is as promised the most bizarre letter I have had to write in a very long time. University decided to let me down last week of exams...

It was really a joke.

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Dear Members of Staff and Student Body,

I am writing as representative of the student body to make a complaint regarding the CS3100 exam on 11th May 2011.

The examination is a final year core module: Software Project Management. I am not aware if all disciplines of DISC in level 3 undertake this exam but I can confirm Computer Science, Information Systems and Network Computing students were part of the examination.

The examination began under normal circumstances however after the initial 10 minutes students started to question an aspect of question 1. After seeing many students raise this issue, the invigilator asked all students to discard this part of the question.

25 minutes into the examination, the same invigilator announced that the wrong set of questions had been given and that a new set of questions was being printed. Students then had to wait while this was carried out.

45 minutes into the exam we were given a new set of questions. We were told that due to the disruption we will be allowed and extra 30 minutes to continue the examination. This did not account for the loss of time in the examination, in total students should have been given an extra 45 minutes.

I have been asked to raise this concern by a number of students who undertook this examination, who are deeply concerned by the universities processes in relation to examination administration. A formal apology has been given for this mistake or the stress and anxiety this caused by this discrepancy, especially considering it is a level 3 examination. However there has been no other notification of what is going to happen with this examination, and the promised transparency in this whole process is yet to be proven.

Generally student’s opinions of this module have been poor; the module seemed to be taught by a broad mix of teachers as an extra module that did they showed little interest, enthusiasm or vigour in teaching.

As fee payers, contributing to our education, we are entitled to a certain quality of education; this is not it. If AQA, Cambridge or Edexcel made this kind of error at GCSE or A level, it would be considered a serious incident that would be reported to JCQ.

From my understanding this situation has not occurred before and I understand that everyone can make mistakes but it seems unfair to be awarded less time for an issue that had nothing to do with the students. Please can you let me know how you will prevent such incidents in the future and how you plan to rectify the current situation.

I would also like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all members of staff in the department (support and teaching) and thank them for the otherwise wonderful experience I and other students have had at university.

Yours Sincerely,

Rishi Chandiramani

Level 3 Computer Science Student Rep.

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Lets hope something is done about it, they did say the process would be transparent, but students have only received an apology letter on the 11th since then.

Also note I will try to post a real personal update before the end of the week! Until then..

Farewell, God knows when we shall meet again.

Rishi....

All falls into place...

"Eventually all things fall into place. Until then, laugh at the confusion, live for the moments, and know EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON."
— Albert Schweitzer

Albert Schweitzer was a Franco-German (Alsatian) theologian, organist, philosopher, physician, and medical missionary.

He was definitely an optimist in life. His famous quote may have seemed one made by a laid back, maybe lazy person. But this man won a Nobel peace prize, I wonder how many actual laid back people have done this...

In fact this famous quote is probably the best quote to describe my life for the last few weeks and maybe months if that...

My year 3 at university has been exhausting and has proven to be quite challenging. My social life as a result of all of this has disappeared. But I must admit sometimes you just have to work your socks off for a year to collect the dividends. There have been moments of confusion, stress and disappointment. I would lie if I said that I wasn't hurt after having a job interview and getting a rejection despite thinking the interview went well.

My final year project came to a close late March and after that it was a hard month of revision that brought me to my last 2 weeks at university with 4 exams to do. The first 2 were actually the harder subjects of the 4 being held in the first week. However the highlight day of my year falls on the Thursday of that week, 05/05/2011. I got a phone call on my Spanish mobile at around 2.30 pm. It was a blocked number, and just days earlier I had got a call from Vodafone asking me if I was interested in switching lines. So I assumed it would be Orange or some other company. To my surprise PwC called and offer me a JOB! something I had been hoping for since at least January.

To quote Albert Schweitzer again "eventually all things fall into place.." that just seemed to happen to me on that day. I had finished one of the toughest papers I have had at university and I had a plan now. I wasn't headed back to Spain without knowing where the future was taking me. Come September I have a job!

The following week lead to some more good stories, including the university handing out the wrong set of questions for an exam and wasting 45 minutes of our time. I promise I will publish more on that as I need to fight the case as a course Rep. I am writing a letter to the department so I will probably post this letter so that everyone can see what exactly happened.

But yes now its Tuesday 01.38 AM and I am exactly 7 days away from closing, what is probably the turning point of my life. A chapter that has probably made me in many ways what I am today. The UK experience, the University experience. The country is going to be missed in many ways, but at the same time there are so many things I am going to be glad I am getting rid off. After all I am going back to SPAIN!!

So guys just remember, life is an interesting experience but hold on if you're having a hard time right now, just laugh at all the confusion because remember everything falls into place, it seems to have done that for me at least, till now.

Farewell, God knows when we shall meet again.

Rishi....

Location:Isambard Close,,United Kingdom