Picking up from yesterday –
I shared plenty of frustration. That should be enough. But apparently it’s not, as I didn’t have room to say this part as well. To put this in perspective –
A few days before this Berklee call was my call with the Harvard counselor. The Harvard counselor was so kind and fought for me like crazy when all I’d done was sign up for one class. I hadn’t even been accepted as a student yet!
At Berklee, my parents spent many, many tens of thousands of dollars. I am deep into being a student there. My counselor can’t care at all?
Even if the rules to her really are that black and white, she can’t at least have a caring tone, or pretend she wishes there were something else she could do?
She has to basically talk down to me, acting like I have no idea what I’m talking about (and that even if maybe I do, I’m making stupid requests)?
Even when I called the registrar, the (I’m pretty sure) student on the phone was bending over backward trying to help me find a way.
He was suggesting things such as switching to Professional Music (in which you basically design your own major), and any other idea he could think of.
Ultimately, I didn’t go with any of his ideas. But the fact that he sympathized and wanted to help (or at least acted like he did) made me feel a million times better than getting this cold concrete wall of “if you fall within the exact painted lines, I’ll begrudgingly fill out the correct paperwork. Otherwise, I don’t care one bit what you want to do – but I’m certainly not gonna help you do it.”
That was especially a frustrating attitude because she is a counselor! Is it not her job to try to help find solutions for students?
This is actually a frustrating thing about Berklee in general. If my experience (and every experience I’ve ever heard talked about) is any indication of the overall experience at Berklee, then there is almost no person in any admin-type office who wants to help you.
(I qualify that with almost no person, as there are some gems… You just may have to work to find them.)
This is where I’ll pick up tomorrow.