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When signing up for classes at university, you want to chooses ones that will work well for your private life, work commitments, and more.

What would you do if in the middle of a semester, the school administrator tried to force you to switch classes to one offered at a different time, claiming it was necessary for reporting?

That is what happened to the guy in this story, so he pushed back and worked with his professors to ensure the transfer couldn’t happen.

He was only standing up for what was right. Read through the full story below and see if you think he handled it well.

You want me to switch classes mid semester? Fine!

In every university in my country, and probably most other countries, there are mandatory subjects everyone has to take regardless of their major. My friends and I are Mass Communication majors, for reference.

Nothing wrong with picking classes based on your schedule.

About two weeks before the semester started, we registered for classes and were allowed to choose which faculty section of the mandatory subject we wanted.

Since the syllabus was identical across faculties, we picked the Management faculty’s Monday 6–8PM class instead of the Mass Comm faculty’s Friday 8–10AM class because it fit our schedules better.

They seem to know what they are doing.

I work part time on weekends and whenever else I can squeeze any shifts in, so the Friday morning slot was rough since I had a 2 hour travel time to head back home before work.

And this wasn’t my first rodeo either. I’d been in mandatory classes that were in a different faculty section two or three times over the past two years that I’ve been in university, with no issues.

Why do they care where they take this class?

Then, in Week 4 of the semester, our lecturer, Mrs.N, suddenly emailed my friends and I saying she’d just found out that we supposedly weren’t allowed to be in her class and had to switch back to our own faculty’s section.

Confused, we went on a full wild goose chase between two different departments. First, the division handling mandatory subjects, then the Mass Comm faculty admin. When we finally met the admin officer, she was super rude and condescending.

Something weird is going on here.

She even called us selfish, kept interrupting us, refused to explain anything properly, and just kept repeating, “You can’t, you can’t, you just can’t.” when we asked her anything.

She’d also ask us questions like, “Why would you choose another faculty’s class?” but every time I tried to answer, she’d cut me off mid sentence.

At that point, I realized what she was doing. She was just to wear us down until we gave up. Honestly speaking, if she had been polite, I probably would’ve relented. But she was so unnecessarily rude that I dug my heels in out of pure spite.

So, this is all about a stupid report?

Eventually, I cut in and calmly said, “Ma’am, you’ve asked us several questions without letting us answer, and you haven’t answered ours either. We’re willing to comply, but we’d like to understand why we’re being asked to switch classes in Week 4, and whether there’s another option since this schedule accommodates us better.”

That actually made her stop cutting me off! When she regained composure, she snapped, “It messes up the end-of-semester report! You students should manage your schedules better.”

And I replied, “I thought university was supposed to accommodate students from different circumstances. I work part-time, for example.”

The teacher clearly doesn’t mind.

She huffed, and switched to this fake sweet tone and said, “Fine! Email your lecturer and see if she agrees to let you stay. But if she says no, you come back here, drop the class, and register for your own faculty’s section. Okay? Okay.”

I just smiled, held back how mad I was with how she was treating me and my friends, and said, “Okay, thank you,” and we all left.

Now they are looping in another teacher.

So, we emailed the lecturer and CCed the admin. Mrs.N replied saying she had no issue with us staying in the class. The admin, despite literally saying she’d allow it if the lecturer agreed, suddenly responded with a long explanation about why we still shouldn’t stay.

That’s when I pulled my final move: I contacted the lecturer teaching the Mass Comm section, Ms.Z.

Ms.Z and I are close! I helped her a lot over the past two semesters since I met her during the middle of my first year, and she’s always been really supportive of me.

The truth comes out.

I messaged her personally to let her know I might be joining her Friday class, and she was immediately confused because she thought I was staying in the Management class section.

So, I explained everything to her, and she was absolutely appalled, and told me that apparently the system auto-collects grades across all divisions regardless of the students’ majors, so it doesn’t affect the report in any way.

This is getting ridiculous.

The admin was basically lying, and apparently the only reason why she wanted me and my friends to switch classes was due to a few students from Ms.Z’s class who requested to switch to Mrs.N’s class because Ms.Z’s class was too early for them, but they requested after the third week, which wasn’t allowed anyway.

Then she told me that as the lecturer, she had to approve any new students registering for her class, and because of what happened and how it happened, she promised that she wouldn’t approve my transfer.

Well done, professor.

No approval, no class switch!

To make it even better, she doubled down and personally told the admin that she didn’t want additional students in her class and to let us stay in our current class since it was reaching the 5th week and nearing the deadline for our first assignment, so we had a very valid reason to stay.

All of this because the administrator was too lazy to do her job properly. Why am I not surprised.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about this story.

Here is a commenter who thinks they should complain formally.

This would be an easy system.

Here is someone who says to run this up to the Dean if necessary.

This just doesn’t make sense.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a homeowner who doesn’t care whether or not their neighbors hate their yard flamingos, because they aren’t subject to the HOA.

This is how university should be.

Some people just like to flex their power, even when it is for a stupid reason. The secretary would rather inconvenience a student than update her report.