Furious

So this week has been my worst week so far in France and its all thanks to the administrative system at Strasbourg University.

On Thursday, I was meant to have an exam at 11:30 am but I missed it and I was absolutely fuming, and here is why.

The reason why I missed the exam was because the university decided to change the location of the exam and did not email me or put the new location on the university website. So in the morning of my exam, I went to the location (where I thought the exam was being held) 30 minutes early and no one was there. I started to get suspicious when 15 minutes later no one had showed up. I then texted another Erasmus student that was on my course, but no reply. Then I went on the university website and my emails to double check that I hadn’t missed an important email, and nothing. So I stayed where I was for another 15 minutes. By this time I was panicking and calling the few people that I knew who were on my course, and still no answer. I stayed at the location for another 15 minutes just for good measure and still no show. I then went home, stressed out and panicking that I had missed my exam. After the exam was done, the friend that I had been calling texted me to tell me that the location of the exam had in fact been changed and that there was a Facebook post on the History Facebook page last night stating the new changes. And that if he hadn’t checked on Facebook in the morning, he too would have missed it, as he received no email about the new location.

This made me furious. How could a university post exam changes on a Facebook page and not on the official university website? I then spoke to another Erasmus student from a different department who informed me that the same thing had happened to her last semester. That her department had changed the location of her exam, emailed all the French students and forgot to email the Erasmus students and she missed her exam.

I think this is absolutely ridiculous. Revising all week for an exam, only to miss it because the university didn’t think that I was important enough to know that they changed the location. I’ve emailed Leicester to inform them of the situation and it is still an ongoing issue as they have to speak to Strasbourg to get their side of events. But I refuse to retake the exam as I am still furious. It’s been two days and I can’t seem to get over the situation. It is the most unprofessional thing I’ve ever experienced. I have an exam on Monday and I’m dreading a repeat of Thursday’s fiasco. I’ve been checking the Facebook page every 2 hours just in case.