Why on Earth do we, the students, have to complete so many hours to graduate?
A student at The University of Memphis has to complete 132 semester hours to graduate.
Please allow me to quote from the student bulletin, "To complete a 132 semester hour degree program in four years, you need to take 33 hours per year. The maximum allowed per semester (fall/spring) is 18 hours. Special permission must be received in order to carry more than 18 hours."
So what I'm being told here is that to complete college on time, each student must take four 18 semesters and four 15 hour semesters during their college career.
That doesn't seem like to much, but let's think about it a little more.
Let's be generous and say the average student only studies about two hours per week for each of their classes. In an 18 hour semester that would be 12 hours a week, nine hours a week for a 15 hour semester.
Where does that leave us? A total of 30 hours per week work for a 18 hour semester and a total of 24 hours a week for a 15 hour semester.
That's about the equivalent of a part-time job. That's fine for all the lucky students whose mommies and daddies pay for everything so they can sit around all day like the spoiled little brats they are and wonder why the rest of us complain so much.
Let me tell you why we complain so much. We have car payments, we have insurance, we day-to-day expenses -- like gasoline! We have rent and a million other things that burden our pocketbooks.
So we have to work. Not little part-time jobs at the skating rink either. We have to get real jobs and spend 40 or more hours a week working hard to be able to afford to go to school.
It's not right to force us college students into 70 hour work weeks, and it's simply not possible to keep that up for four years straight.
This is a gross injustice to the students, so either stop lying to us about being able to get out of school in four years or drop some elective hours from the graduation requirements.
Sorry for the lack of humor in this column but my editor will no longer allow me to make jokes about fomer Tennessee governor Ned McWherter giving table dances.
Help me correct this oversight in judgement, e-mail your support of Ned McWherter giving table dances to helmsmanlib@memphis.edu.
Oh, almost forgot my obligatory sarcasm ... SGA rules!
