The examination dates saga

After putting the horrifying experience of trimester 1 behind us, trimester 2 looked bright and was smooth sailing until March 13, when our course newsletter reached our email in the evening. By now, our program manager is no longer Christopher and the role is now managed by a new comer, Juliana.

In the newsletter, we were informed that our examination dates for trimester 2 will be changed. in the original schedule, there was one paper each on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In the new schedule, Murdoch had decided to reschedule a paper to Thursday, and two on Saturday.

This proved to be a total disaster and triggered a major backlash. We were outraged by their decision to do so without providing any reason apart that the Murdoch Examination Department made the changes.

Here is an email reply to our course mate when he inquire about the changes.

Hi [CENSORED],

The examination dates are determined by Murdoch Examination Department.

The moment I saw that ICT326 and ICT310 are held on the same day but on different timings, I immediately contacted the Examination Department. Although the Examination time do not overlap, taking 2 examinations on the same day is taxing on the students.

As Murdoch has many programs in Singapore, the Murdoch Examination Department plans the examination dates based on another school’s units offered.

From our experience, despite several appeals on behalf of the students, the examination department is unable to change the examination dates and times.

Once the examination board replies, I will let you know.

I am very sorry to let you know this… but… it is not likely to change…

Regards

Juliana

ICT 326 is Information Systems Management and ICT 310 is Operating Systems. Both of them are the trimester's killer subjects. To stack them on a single day is as good as forcing us to fail at least one of them or perform miserably at both of them.

Over the next few days, we wrote multiple emails for explanations and demand to reinstate the original examination schedules. And we were determined to do so. Granted that Juliana is new to her job, but due to the severity of the matter, we practically demand firm and prompt action on her behalf. With the exception of a person, our emails were still relatively on a friendly note.

I sent a reply of my own after thinking through hard on Friday. I couldn't resist the temptation of writing a devilishly long complain oriented email that will scare and stress out our new female program manager. I just have to do it ... albeit nicely.

Hi,

I am not pleased by the announcement the change in exam dates.

>> The examination dates are determined by Murdoch Examination Department.

We were given an exam schedule before the trimester started. It is great, evenly spaced out throughout the week. Were the dates determined by Murdoch Examination Department ?
I can understand that lesson schedules can be changed. But rescheduling examinations date is simply ridiculous. I had never had a exam reschedule or heard of one in my entire life so far, until now. I have made very clear during the feedback session before the trimester started with Christopher and Carol that any rescheduling must not be treated lightly. Is this necessary ? What is the rationale ?

>> The moment I saw that ICT326 and ICT310 are held on the same day but on different timings, I immediately contacted the Examination Department. Although the Examination time do not overlap, taking 2 examinations on the same day is taxing on the students.

I appreciate that. You did hi-lighted the change in red.

>> As Murdoch has many programs in Singapore, the Murdoch Examination Department plans the examination dates based on another school's units offered.

Frankly, I don't care about any other programs from Murdoch. My concern is only with the one I am taking now, BIS1. I don't see why our exam schedule should be changed due to any other factors. Is this really Murdoch or Kaplan ? Is some party unable to cope ?

>> From our experience, despite several appeals on behalf of the students, the examination department is unable to change the examination dates and times.

Then why is the exam different from the ones that was made known to us before the trimester started? Were the dates pluck out of midair by Kaplan or changed at will by Murdoch ?

>> Once the examination board replies, I will let you know.

With a detailed explanation preferred. This is not a feedback, comment or appeal. I will put it as a demand and i am sure that my fellow course mates will agree on this point.

I am a full paying part time student and a full time working adult. I do not have the luxury to change my leave planning to suit sudden changes to the exam schedules. My leaves are already booked and it is not easy to re-shuffle my leave schedule with 10 other people especially I am in a new job. If this is a decision made by Murdoch, they have better seriously rethink this change in exam schedule. In case somebody had forgotten that they are dealing with part time students with full time jobs, I must emphasize that this is totally unacceptable. We need time to prepare for the exams and the topics in this trimester are already devilishly hard. By stacking two difficult examinations in one day, it is as good as asking us to sacrifice a subject for another. This is unfair and unprofessional.I am protesting against this apparent act of mismanagement and sabotage.


In protest
Foong Jia Khang

Juliana didn't make any response to our growing flood of emails to her over the weekend. We didn't expect her to, as she is working on weekdays. As I had mentioned earlier, one of our course mate wasn't as diplomatic as the rest were. When the rest of us saw the email that he had sent, we were initially stunned, angry and then amused. So why is that ? Read on !

Dear Juliana,

I cannot accept your explanation regarding the dates, i do not believe that the school has intentions to purposely punish the students this way.
The original dates set by the school on 21st,23rd,25th April was determined at the start of the course, if they were set like the current dates we would
protest IMMEDIATELY at the start of the semester. The current exam dates are not acceptable by ALL the students in BIS1, I demand that it should be
changed back to the original dates or kaplan and murdoch will have to face the consequences by various authorities in Singapore including MOE, CASE and Strait times.
You have up to 20th March 2008 before i start notifying the authorities. I'm not joking.

Also please give me the email of the school director/ceo if you do not have the authority to change.

Regards,

Gary Tay

Apparently, this Gary Tay guy didn't understand the mechanics of the real world. In the initial phrase of any engagement, people start by clarification and negotiation not confrontation and threats. Not only he sounded childish, spoilt and mean, he made us sounded like barbarians. To add insult to the injury, other than breaking the rules of engagement, he tried to skip through the chain of command as well.

In a desperate attempt to communicate his demands to the highest authorities possible, he went on to send his email to ...

1. ceo@apmi.edu.sg
   
2. sales@apmi.edu.sg
3. help@apmi.edu.sg
4. support@ampi.edu.sg

by CC ... no less ...

and sent the email to the wrong person. Instead of sending to his intended audience, he sent it to one of our fellow course mate. This showed that either he didn't know how to send the email to the correct person, he also didn't know the difference between "to", "CC" and "BCC". This just shows that he is a noob when it comes to sending emails. Such embarrassment !

The kicker is ceo@apmi.edu.sg. Which organisation will be so lazy that it will use such a genetic name for their CEO ? CEO don't change everyday to justify this ! The rest of us couldn't take this shit and I decided to write to Gary.

Gary,

I disagree with your tone used in your reply to Juliana. She is new and to be fair, we should give her a chance to convey our unhappiness to Kaplan and Murdoch. Christopher was given one chance too many though. Let's watch their response to our emails. This is only round one and I see no reason to use threats. This will not help and only create a confrontational atmosphere. Should Kaplan provide us with an unsatisfactory answer, then we can directly demand an explanation from Murdoch. Of course, we should not just sit there, and do nothing while waiting for their official replies. So I recommend that we set a reasonable deadline for their replies in another mail. In additional, we can make a call to Carol to make sure that she is aware of this, and we should prepare a petition to Murdoch as well.

Foong Jia Khang

His reply however, was nothing short of disgusting.

I have my rights to show my dismay including demanding action. U can disagree. I dun feel like playing nice after they did that.

This prompted me to decide to draw a line between Gary and the rest of us by sending another email to Juliana. From his emails were simply demeaning and a total waste of time.

Dear Juliana,

The majority of the students will like to go for a more diplomatic route to work things out. Most of us have voiced out strongly against Gary strong arm tactics and it will do us no good to make the situation any worse than it is. I must stress that his actions does not represent the rest of us and we do not endorse them in any way, in the past, present or future.

Can you let us know by latest Tuesday, on what is the course of action that Kaplan will take to protest against this unfair change of examination schedule. If we don't receive any reply by Tuesday, we will be forced to take alternative and more dramatic actions.

Don't disappoint us again. We expect to see swift replies if not, actions..

Foong Jia Khang

With this, the students were officially divided into 2 fractions: Gary and the rest of us. On Monday, we were all anticipating Juliana's reaction to our flood of emails to her, which ran into a count of 20 odd emails. She didn't disappoint us for long. Very suspiciously, she took MC on Monday. Now that's smart ! She was probably shell shocked and had to retreat to rethink her options.

Dear All

I understand the examination dates that were recently released to you all had caused some unhappiness and upset majority of you. In particular, 2 units examination conducted on the same day.

The examination dates that were disseminated to you all previously were planned based on examination week and also following the same exam sequence for your previous Trimester 3. However, Murdoch came back to us recently with a fixed examination schedule planned by Murdoch themselves.

Please give me some time, I am working closely with Murdoch on this and hope to update you by end this week on the outcome. Hopefully with some good news! J

Thank you all for your patience & understanding.

Regards

Juliana

So we got her reply on Tuesday promising action on her part. That's a improvement for a start. We even tried to act friendly by using a J in her reply. But we were getting impatient by the day. That's because on Thursday, our option for any deferment would expire. That is important because should our appeal to reinstate the original examination dates fail, we will be forced to defer at least 1 subject each to save our grades. So on Wednesday, one of our course mate helped to call and arrange for an emergency feedback session in the evening with Juliana and Carol (Boss of Juliana and Christopher)

I guess Kaplan must have enough of our last feedback session which turned into a very ugly one-sided confrontation. They seemed to be determined to avoid another feedback session with us and Carol played her cards and excused herself from the session, pushing a new unknown person, Jacqueline into the fiery pits.

While we were busy preparing our weapons and methods of interrogation, Kaplan took the hint and worked harder and faster. As the evening drew nearer, we unearthed more inconvenient truths that would have make Kaplan looked like fools. For instance, we were the only group of students taking the subjects now, so our examination schedule is 100% independent from any other cohorts and the Australia side was trying to "moderate" our high assessment scores.

Dear All

I have good news!!! The Uni has listened to your appeals and they have agreed to revert the exam dates back to the original.

The examination dates will be remain as:

ICT326: 23 April

ICT218: 21 April

ICT310: 25 April

The examination will be conducted from 7pm onwards.

Regards

Juliana

So they took us seriously this time round managed to avoid another epic level thrashing session by convincing Murdoch to back down and reverse the changes in the examination schedule. We were relieved but nevertheless, our confidence in APMI Kaplan and Murdoch was shaken again.

During our brain storming sessions, we had came up with many options which would have made a very ugly ending indeed. Even though this chapter in our continuing saga with Kaplan had came to a close, we were now convinced that Kaplan will not put in effort to stand up for us without immerse pressure. In fact, if things continue the way things are, they will end up on the newspaper for losing an entire cohort of students because of repeated failures in administration.

This is certainly another bittersweet victory. And with this incident, I will reassert my claim that APMI Kaplan's BIS course sucks big time. I pity the 20 people who signed up for the 2nd intake. If only we could warn them before they starts...

BIS 1 vs APMI Kaplan / Murdoch = 2 - 0

> 34 emails were exchanged