Clean up your act, Baruch

Given all the education Baruch students receive, how is it that they do not notice the problems with Baruch's academic calendar? On the spring 2010 calendar posted on Baruch's website, the last day to drop a course with a 100 percent tuition refund is January 27, but the first day of class is January 28. How can anyone know whether they want to stay enrolled in a course if they have not even attended the class?

This is not fair. Further down the calendar, the situation becomes even worse during the summer semester. There is no 75 percent refund, and the last day to drop a course and receive a 50 percent refund is June 7. Even if someone drops the course before June 7 and after June 1, they still do not get a full refund.

A friend of mine who is taking summer classes at Baruch faced this dilemma. The student decided to appeal, but was told that appeals are not processed during the summer, and that it could not be completed until August. Details like this ruin the reputation of an institution.

This might not affect students who have scholarships or grants, but those who do not have other resources available have not done anything about it yet. There are many international students at Baruch who pay double tuition. The majority of our students have jobs and internships. We should not let this matter slide.

I can only hope that when and if students at Baruch appeal to fix this problem, they will not receive a letter denying them with no explanation. Denied appeals without proper explanations also happen to be a common problem at Baruch.

As students of Baruch, we are constantly striving to enhance the reputation of our institution, so we deserve a proper explanation. To file an appeal, students have to go out of their way to present all the reasons why something is not possible and why they would like to have it adjusted. Students have to include all the details and convince the committees to approve the appeal. Thus, cold one-line replies should not be acceptable to us.

The purpose of the student government is to solve issues like this. The current elected student government made several promises regarding bringing about change, so I hope they know that an issue like this exists.

If students cannot do anything about this, then we really do not have any rights at Baruch.