Throwback to A.P. Biology

Last night I had to go to the library to print what I had assumed would be 10-20 pages of some crap (pardon my attitude, but it's justified - read on) one of my teachers posted online - papers which were required to finish the homework last night.

So I go to the library to print the pages because it prints faster and I feel like I'm not wasting my own ink if I print it at the library even though I still have to pay 4 cents a page.

Upon getting to the library a bit after 9:00pm, we find that none of the school's computers have the required update of Adobe Reader and I can't even open the file. In order to download the update, a password is required. So we called over "the red vest" (library tech worker) who was supposed to have the password. Apparently he had a password but not a username, and the computer was asking for both. He tried that for about an hour. We were ready to give up and go home, but our red vest was not. We were trying on a Mac so we went over to a Windows computer and tried it there. After taking 10 minutes to log on (no lie), Chad found the update and was able to download it. That took another 15-20 minutes. Once it downloaded it, we had to restart the computer. It took another 10 minutes to start up again. Meanwhile the red vest is getting more and more annoyed at how slow the computers are and tells us that he is going to bring this up in his meeting tomorrow, because this is just ridiculous. Tell me about it! Anyways, so we finally get back on and open the file we originally needed to open. It opens! We call it a miracle and move on. I select the pages I want and click "Print". The printer doesn't show up in the "select printer location" box. In fact, no printers show up in the box. It has to convert everything into PDF so we can print it. The red vest saves the PDFs on his jump drive and attempts to find us a faster computer. By now it is 11:15. Remember that we got to the library at no later than 9:30. The library closes at 11:30. The red vest has been trying to help us get these 10 pages printed for about 2 hours now. He finds a (relatively) faster computer and sends the pages to the printer. It takes a few minutes to process everything and we realize that it's sending EVERYTHING to the printer.

Now, when I say EVERYTHING, I mean it. The latest thing on campus is to "cut back" on textbook costs by scanning an entire textbook into the computer as PDFs, formatting them as read-only pages, uploading them onto the internet, requiring the students to go online and download the electronic copy of the text.

Now - this could be a good idea! Heck, this could even be a GREAT idea! But in order to grade us, this particular teacher is requiring that we then go on our computers, download the entire file, convert it all back into PDFs, print it, hole punch it, and put it in a notebook so that he has something to grade. He obviously can't put a grade on us saying "Yes, we downloaded it to our computers." So we are required to provide a hard copy.

I present to you my hard copy of the text.



"EVERYTHING" was over 300 pages. And it cost me over $16.00. And I'll have to buy a ridiculous notebook to put it in. Followed by the process of hole punching every page. Chad suggested that I buy a three hole punch and sit in this this guy's class now until the end of the semester (when the "binder" is due) and hole punch each page.

This is RIDICULOUS. On the syllabus it says to print it double-sided. Oh, cuz that makes it better. Besides the fact that the library doesn't have a printer that can print double-sided without printing all of the odd-numbered pages (which you couldn't even do because it's split up into different topics, and then into different sub topics, and they all have their own sets of page numbers) and then put the paper back in the printer and print the even-numbered pages.

And yes, my friends, I found pages of PowerPoint slides. No lie. An entire page that cost me $.04 had about 6 words on it.

I'm pretty sure I would rather pay $30 to have an actual textbook sitting in front of me rather than this crap.

There is no Table of Contents. I think it's a whole bunch of handouts that the teacher has accumulated over his career and has decided that we need, rather than researching it and purchasing a textbook. At least I can sell back a textbook if I want to.

We got to the library at a little after 9:00. About two and a half hours, one red vest, $16(+), and 300 pages later, we left, just as the P.A. told us "Attention: It is now 11:30 and the library is closed." Not happy.