Who amongst the 20,000-odd students in Trinity has never made a mistake? Who’s without fault or sin? Who survived Freshers’ Week shifts and the Palace “county colours” night, devoid of the guilt and the shame? If you raised your hand, I’ve a feeling you’re in a minority. Believe it or not, as students we’re not yet “on top of things”, and yes, sometimes we do make bad decisions. Before you ask, I am no flawless exception to this dogmatic truth. I too can misstep, misjudge and put law down on my CAO application form.
Unfortunately for me, this wisdom I now preach was gifted to me through hindsight. I realised the error of my ways only after the offer had been accepted and the first lecture had begun. In truth, it wasn’t for me. I prefer to ramble and rant in my writings, I enjoy low stress and high energy. Perhaps the first sign was my fundamental lack of legal understanding, though the writing on the wall may well have emerged when on page three of my first module handbook I was informed that when it comes to legal essays “Clarity is far more important than creativity”. Oh dear.
The course itself is beside the point. All the best and much success to those who pursue this noble path in their academic careers. My grievances lie not with my experiences within the lecture hall but rather my encounters with the Academic Registry – a place of hope and promise, so deftly underpinned by the crutch of bureaucracy. Their website would gladly tell you of all the easy and straightforward ways that a naive first-year student like myself may effortlessly transfer from course to course, drifting like some sort of Arts Block Goldilocks searching for the degree that is “just right”. To help affirm this forced smile they even gave me three whole preferences!
Alas, the truth is bleak. You deliberate and agonise over which courses to choose and in what order. You nervously arrange the tutor meeting to secure their signature and then finally sprint your way to the Hamilton under false pretences, having heard from your sister’s, boyfriend’s, cousin’s friend that it’s first come, first served.
Weeks pass and deadlines close, and you wait, and you wait. You’re effectively in academic limbo
And then nothing. Weeks pass and deadlines close, and you wait, and you wait. You’re effectively in academic limbo. Then suddenly you’re proactive, you begin to attend lectures in your future course that’s just beyond the horizon, waiting for you to check your email and see your welcome notice. You attend new lectures and make new friends. If you’re especially confident, you buy new books.
Then, all of a sudden, you hear it. “Denied”. If I could describe the rejection as anything, it would be surgical. It’s direct, straight to the beating heart of the anxiety that has welled within you for weeks. Unflinching with a razor point that hammers home the fact that you must now live with your mistake. Why? Well, the reasons are as vague as they are elusive, something or other about courses being full. This becomes nicely contradictory when you start talking to the many others within said course who’d applied to transfer yet had also been denied. Perhaps places must be withheld. This is at the very real expense, however, of existing students who are faced with remarkably unforgiving consequences for what in the majority of cases was a simple error of judgement.
Perhaps it could be considerate in its manner, efficient in its response and exact in its reasoning
The decision, then, is to endure four more years of disillusionment and apathy or to drop out and say goodbye to friends, both old and new, as they must now stagnate during their formative years. Or, even better, to weather out the remainder of the year and return the following September faced with the price tag that accompanies a year of full fees.
Quite frankly, Trinity doesn’t seem to care. The email is brief and impersonal, no further options or advice are given. It takes roughly 50 words to tear apart any shred of hope you may have had that your first year of third-level education might actually be fulfilling.
I’m not calling for upheaval. I understand floodgates can’t be opened and life is not always kind, but perhaps it could be considerate in its manner, efficient in its response and exact in its reasoning. Then again, this is Trinity, and often it can feel as though that’s just not “how things are done here”.
See you next September, Trinity. I promise I won’t make this mistake twice.
