PDEng sucks.

Finally something has pissed me off enough to warrant a blog entry. PDEng. PDEng is Professional Development for Engineers, a new pilot program kicked off the year that I enrolled at UW. It is a series of 5 courses we have to take during our workterms as engineering students at UW. We were not told of the program during the application process, and it was not a happy surprise for most of the engineering class of 2009.

On one of the assignments this term I forgot to explicitly state how my recommendation would move an issue forward. For that reason I failed the entire course...I know, but the ridiculous marking scheme is the topic for another entry perhaps. If you attend a workshop in the area of your alleged weakness, they will give you credit for the course. Anyways, this morning (yes it's a Saturday) I dragged myself out of bed to attend a mandatory workshop on the assignment that I failed.

I submitted this assignment from my office computer and so did not have a copy of the assigment on my local computer. The "invitation email" asked that I bring a copy of this assignment which I could not do. When I arrived I was told that it wasn't an issue as long as I talked to the staff about it before the workshop was over. I attended the workshop, braved my hangover, participated in discussion and completed the group work and assignments during the workshop.

At the end of the workshop I was told that I had failed PDEng because I did not meet the basic requirements which included bringing my assignment. I cannot comprehend how that fact reflects my ability to write an opinion paper, but apparently it is reason enough to fail a student. Another student failed because he did not RSVP to the invitation email, although he did attend the workshop and complete the work.

I cannot comprehend how this ridiculous rubric was put together and the staff member that informed me of not receiving the credit seemed pretty confused himself. The reason this bothers me so much is because we have to complete each offering of the PDEng program before graduation. We have 6 co-op terms and 5 courses to complete which means that if I fail another offering I will not meet the requirements for my degree and will not graduate with my class.

It's not just me that thinks this is complete bullshit, the staff of PDEng requires escort to their vehicles at night and their offices have been vandalized every term since the program was created. It is the sole reason I would consider dropping out of engineering and into CS and a major reason that I would never recommend engineering at UW to anyone.