In the ongoing saga of my registration at one of California’s fine state higher-educational institutions, today I had to spend several hours in lines and more than an hour in transit to take care of a common paperwork snafu. I applied to San Francisco City College in order to take a prerequisite class in conjunction with applying to San Francisco State University. I couldn’t get the class I needed at City College, because that school is completely impacted and overcrowded, so I ended up taking the class at another local college. SF State informed me, with fewer than 5 business days to spare, that I was about to be dropped from their roster because I had no transcript on record for City College.
I had to take care of all of this in person today, and since this is the beginning of classes at both schools, the phone lines were jammed, the queues for counter service were 50 persons deep, and the parking situation was a nightmare. On top of it all, today is the day when new students move in to their dorms at SF State, so the school was abuzz with students moving their belongings in boxes and crates while their nervous parents observed their children’s new home with worry and disdain.
Once again, I want to mention how terrible the system of paper transcripts is. It may become a personal crusade of mine to encourage the digitization of student records, because nobody should have to go through this.