University Promotes Swine Flu

Just a copy of my article published in Iowa State Daily:

Going back to school to get another degree in a more marketable field after work experience and grad school experience has opened my eyes more clearly to the problems in our education system. However, without digressing too far into my personal opinions on the education system I want to move to the topic of swine flu on college campuses. The flu season is upon us and it is all we hear about. Swine flu, H1N1, flu, whatever version of this nasty beast you are most familiar with we all know it to be a terrible flu that no one wants to get. So why are universities saying they are out to help prevent it without implementing policies that are consistent with their statement? Let me clarify.

This semester especially I have the unfortunate reality of finding myself back in classes with a bunch of freshman. Not that there is anything innately wrong with freshman, but there is something innately wrong with freshman level classes. You don’t learn to learn, you learn to come to class. Freshman classes are traditionally designed to reward attendance over an individuals true aptitude for a subject or even any true thought or learning. I have one class this semester that has a grade distribution such that sixty percent of my grade is me just showing up. This along with the fact that no make ups are given “under any circumstances”, and turning homework in through e-mail is not allowed because professors have extreme paranoia about computer viruses and you start to see a system designed to encourage sick students to attend class regardless of what the university spokesman says about their efforts to stop swine flu.

Last week I woke up and had the tell tale signs of being sick, sore throat, stuffy nose, ached all over, no voice. I was sick. I sent my professor an e-mail letting her know I would not be in class that morning because I was sick, I was going to try to get into student health, and I emailed her my homework. I got a response saying that she didn’t accept my homework because she won’t take an e-mail and that the syllabus clearly states that if you are not going to be in class you are still expected to turn your homework in on time. I posed the question, “how am I supposed to get homework in on time when it is an 8am class and I wake up sick?” If I am not coming to class it is because I am sick. Do I have a classmate come by my house on their way to class and expose them to whatever illness I have? Does she expect me to drive to campus and turn in my homework and then go home? I really don’t understand