Can UCAM at least do an accident-free issue of my certification?
Now the study was officially over. One year of ‘Innovation and Tourism Marketing’ at UCAM in Spain. On-site for almost 8 months and the Master’s thesis for almost 3 months. In less than 12 months having a Master’s. It was then time to prove that with the official documentation.
If you finish your studies there are plenty of reasons why you need a document that states officially your graduation. I could think for example to…
- send a proof to a scholarship institution or bank that you successfully passed your studies
- attach it to every job application you send out
- meet the requirements for a doctorate study
- immigration purposes
- send these documents to insurances who could request a document to check if you are still a student
- etc.
But these are only a few reasons why a graduate student really needs these documents as soon as possible. You can, of course, continue with that list of reasons as far as you want and also add personal reasons. But some stakeholders want to see proof of your graduated studies and the only one who can officially confirm that is the university.
Can the administration of UCAM at least do a simple copy+paste job correctly? Putting the student’s grades from their system into a document? Issue it correctly and then send it by post mail like a normal and fully functioning institution?
If you read the previous chapters, I’m pretty sure that some high doubts are raised inside of you. You probably want to answer all of these aforementioned questions with a clear ‘NO, of course not!’ And this is certainly the most correct answer in that case.
Thus, it’s quite a critical point that the university should do its part and supply the students with an official document. Some students needed it urgently. I needed it for immigration purposes and to apply for a doctorate study and was bitterly disappointed with how UCAM handled my case. But first, I would like to tell you another true story I published before in another article on my blog. Follow that link or just continue reading:
Official certificates? Maybe UCAM will send them somewhere to China…
That’s now another really funny story, but sadly 100% reality AND truth. It didn’t concern me, but it could’ve been easily me in that situation.
One Vietnamese student of a different course finished successfully her Master’s study in Hospitality Management. She worked in her graduation internship for a big hotel chain in Dubai and continued working there after the study. Also, she applied to receive an official certificate from the university. Of course, you want to prove to everyone, that you successfully graduated.
And what did the high-quality administration of UCAM do? They sent her certificate to China. Maybe the following picture helps to understand it better:
Now you ask yourself, why someone would send on purpose a highly important letter to a false address in a false country? Or how it is possible to get confused amongst China, Dubai, and Vietnam? Well, as logic and rational thinking person I can’t give you an answer here, maybe they just got confused because of the flags…
It takes one whole pregnancy period before UCAM accomplishes simple tasks
In my case, they screwed more than up and needed almost 9 (nine!) months to send me my well-deserved documents. Within that timeframe of nine months, it could’ve been more realistic to procreate an offspring rather than receiving official documents from UCAM. But why does UCAM need a whole time slot of a pregnancy before issuing and sending simple documents out?
First, they were communicating their outdated payment details of 2013/2014 with the wrong banking details…
But this was of course not the only mistake inside of one message. Also with my recipient’s address, they did something completely wrong. I lived before my study in Amsterdam and they seriously wanted to send me the documentation to the outdated address. How many students go back to the same address where they applied from? Not many I guess.
Although I changed my personal data twice personally inside of the offices, the changes were overwritten, it seemed. When I wrote a mail to ask for correction of my personal data, I received the following answer in broken English:
Reads itself like an email from someone who took his third English class. Borat would be very proud of him/her. But it shows sadly the English level of the staff. They didn’t even understand and comprehend, what I wanted from them or that I was notified about their wrong/outdated payment details and the recipient’s wrong address. I only should not worry and could pay perfectly. Great!
When I answered again, that it would be very nice to be 100% sure to have the right address inside of my documents BEFORE I was paying, I didn’t get any answer again and was ignored. But I found somehow online an option to change my user data at the virtual campus. When I changed the address, I received the following automated mail:
The most important part of the mail is at the bottom. I have to wait 15 days (!) until I will be informed via SMS about either the approval or disproval of the changes I made. Who was responsible for designing this process? How outmoded can a university be? Does it need a simple student to tell them how ridiculous that is? In every of our normal online accounts, it is possible to make these changes in real-time. And UCAM needs 15 days to change the address information of a student?! And informs you via SMS?!
It’s almost impossible to believe, I know, but that’s not all. I made these changes on December 8th and was expecting then on December 23th an answer via SMS. Nothing happened until then. Knowing that then the Christmas break started and no one would work for more than two weeks, I wrote after more than 20 days without notification during that time another eMail to the administration and requested information about this address change and if it would be finally possible to send the documents to the RIGHT address.
Again I’ve been ignored from these work and logic refuseniks. So I was waiting in vain for my official documentation for five and a half months because I am dependent on people who don’t even comply with their own redundant and outdated processes. And guess what? After five and a half months they send me the wrong documents without the correct amount of credit points:
A good read through? Dude, I saw at first glance, that you were not doing your job right. It’s not very difficult to count until 60 (credit points), at least not for a normal person with average abilities.
From the perspective of someone who tries to do always everything right and as it should and who thinks logic, rationale, and efficient I can’t tell you how an institution like UCAM can make almost everything wrong what is possible to be made wrong. I guess, that my little cousin with his seven years wouldn’t do a worse job than the people from UCAM’s administration.
But you know, what the funniest story is? I asked them to send it to me again. And you know what happened? They didn’t correct the mistake in the overview and sent it to me in an incomplete version again. The same issue with the same mistakes. AGAIN.
When the official document was finally sent to my home address, it was already too late for everything. I couldn’t apply for the immigration process in Ecuador to obtain a working visa and I also missed 3 (!) different deadlines for an application process for a doctoral study. All because the wrong people in charge couldn’t exert a simple task as they should. Issuing these highly important documents correctly and on time isn’t rocket science, just administrational neatness.
It took them the incredibly ridiculous attempts and NINE MONTHS before they were able to do what others can do in nine days. My efforts to plan my future were back then already baffled because of the administration of UCAM. Thanks again for that, you nogoodniks!
Next page: But what actually happened with the official Master’s title?