My First RU Screw

My last #RUScrew post is going to be about one of the first #RUScrews that people face. Before one even matriculates to Rutgers University, they go through this beautiful process known as Financial Aid paperwork. Yup. It’s that thing you start your senior year of high school and sort of end up doing it every year after because let’s face it – a college student broke broke.

You know what sucks, though? Going to college WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING WHAT YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR IT. That’s right. FAFSA may give you a rough estimate of what they’ll cover, but a significant portion of the aid is individual to the University you go to. Attend a University with less than a couple thousand in your graduating class? Cool. Maybe you get your Reward Letter from your college in time.

NOT AT RUTGERS. Rutgers happens to be one of THE LAST Universities to give out it’s financial aid award letter. I remember being a senior and getting all my acceptance letters from colleges, with their awards letters shortly in the days following. Rutgers, took its’ sweet ass time. I didn’t get my award letter well until deep into May. By then, I’d already accepted going to college at Rutgers. One of the first prices I paid for attending a University as large as Rutgers. It was truly my first #RUScrew.

I know I wasn’t alone in this. You know how I knew? Because I found comfort in bitching about this RUScrew with my fellow online Reddit community. I felt reassured reading about the others’ struggles. I wasn’t a victim alone.

Moving past facing financial aid at Rutgers as a first-year, I’ve learned of yet another #RUScrew when it comes to financial aid. The award letters for returning students DON’T COME OUT UNTIL END OF JUNE. Interesting. My dad was simply trying to lay out a budget ahead of time, like a mature adult would, but nah… Rutgers said, “you would’ve thought.” What’s worse? This revelation prevented me from deciding if I could dorm next year. How am I supposed to make a decision so big without knowing exactly what I’ll come out paying for it? It doesn’t make sense.

Housing applications: housing deposit due by the end of March

Rutgers Financial Aid Office: maybe you’ll receive the award by end of June

How intriguing.

I’ve heard from certain TA’s that their financial is where the real #RUScrew is at. It’s a gamble when it comes to TAs really. They come into college with an award estimate given and out of nowhere they’re stuck mid semester with a financial hold because they owe money that they knew nothing about. Why? Because budget was reevaluated and the budget cuts were made in the TA department. Nicee.

And God forbid that you decide to actually tackle one of these situations by calling the financial aid office. Just make sure to sit down with a ball of yarn and some threading needles. I’m sure by the end of the “hold” waiting period you’ll have a whole mini scarf knitted. I know just a few weeks ago I had to deal with this process because I kept getting emails that they were missing documents from my submission. Interesting. I’d only submitted that same document twice AND gotten emails of confirmed submission. So when I finally got a hold of someone at the office, they checked up my account and said they actually already had the documents and all I had to do was wait for them to evaluate my application. Okay. Umm. Then why hell was I getting emails of missing documents, my guy??

His answer was that sometimes the system is slow to update. Interesting. Even your automated machines resemble the traits of financial aid office.

I bet at some point in your Rutgers experience, you too have been #RUScrewed with financial aspects. It happens to the best of us. It’s simply too hard for everything to work out so fast and smooth at a University with thousands of students. But we live with it anyway.

Want to read other people’s financial aid #RUScrew stories? Say less.

Throughout the many RUScrews I’ve encountered this year, history could be made in the upcoming days because this next RUScrew is unique: it’s RUScrewed – teachers’ edition.

For those that aren’t aware of on campus news, there has been talk of a strike by the full time teacher faculty union, American Association of University Professors and American Federation of Teachers (AAUP-AFT). The strike is the possible consequence of a #RUScrew that a great part of the faculty at Rutgers face.

One of the many Unions that makes up the Rutgers faculty had their contract expire over a year ago – in July of 2017, I believe. This left multiple professors and graduate teaching assistants teaching courses without an actual employment contract by Rutgers. Nice. The purpose of the contract renewal being delayed was that there are several aspects of the contract that are unfair and Rutgers heads simply didn’t give enough importance to that matter. The Union started negotiations for this contract as early as December of 2017. Ladies and gentlemen, we are a quarter of the way into 2019.

Clearly the Rutgers faculty has been #RUScrewed, much like the students of Rutgers. The Rutgers administration heads have been pushing off concerns of the faculty because, like the students at Rutgers, these are simply a few employees in comparison to all of the Rutgers employees prepping for the strike.

How does this ignorance by Rutgers’ department heads of administration count as an RUScrew? Due to this renegotiation of contract and bargaining going on for months now, several faculty members have been working without a contract – ie with no insurance, no benefits, and the constant thought of “what will happen next.” More victims of this #RUScrew include the graduate teaching assistants. Compared to the other Universities, they aren’t paid as well for their positions.

Rutgers administration has pushed bargaining meetings to the absolute last dates possible and have been reluctant to allocate more than a few hours of meetings per month.

Teachers: threaten to possibly go on strikes

Rutgers Management: Let’s go put “$65 M. for Athletic Facility Breaks Ground” and not care obout what the teachers Union wants.

Way to go Scarlet Knight administration heads. Rutgers management really seems to have their priorities set straight. The audacity of management allocating even more money on athletics while the Union has been fighting for the very matter that it’s not fair for athletics to have so much money spent that they put Rutgers at a deficit but teachers can’t get an increase in wages… #RUScrew.

Perhaps you as students don’t care about this strike. You should. This #RUScrew could trickle-down to affect you as well. If teachers go on strike, classes will be cancelled. Yeah, I know that sounds fun right now but wait until you have to teach yourself that lecture or attend a make up lecture for that class on a weekend because you will still be responsible for the material. Most of my teachers have addressed that our assignments will still be due, especially since most of them are online. Not so fun anymore huh.

I’ve never realized how big Rutgers is until now and it just makes it more obvious to me that more and more people will encounter the #RUScrew because little fish will always go unnoticed in a big ocean. This post is unique because while it’s addressing a very relevant #RUScrew at Rutgers lately, it’s a #RUScrew where the Union is fighting back against it.

When I was in high school, I loved taking AP classes because they didn’t make you do the “busy work” assignments and it was all about studying the material and exams. I thought it was perfect because you only learn what you need to and don’t waste time. Coming to Rutgers, I was like, “perfect, I’ll be in lecture like twice a week and just have to review that material until the exam.” Wrong.

One of the biggest #RUScrews I have come across is one that I didn’t think I would find to be a “screw” – big lecture halls. Rutgers is so big that most of my classes here have been huge lectures. With the exception of maybe one SAS core class that I’ll take every semester, all my Gen Science classes have been at least 400 students per lecture. You don’t realize that this is a #RUScrew until the year goes on and you feel so distant from your professor… since I’m a First-Year student, it was a new feeling.

In other colleges, students continue to study in a classroom type setting, which seems like a dull life because – duh you’re in college – but that setting wasn’t appreciated enough by us in high school. We developed relationships with our instructors simply by being present. I can sit in lecture every week or just not go, point is the professor doesn’t even know.

I’ll find myself feeling like a number in lecture – not a student. I feel like I’m just one of the hundreds of kids here. And even if you think, “okay it’s just lecture… I just need to get the lecture notes,” you’re wrong. Being a student in a lecture class has a totally different feeling because you don’t feel responsible for work. Paying attention in lecture comes harder than it does in a classroom. If you don’t know what I mean then just attend a lecture – not to pay attention to the material but the students… you’ll find schlump city. Part of it is upon the student – yes, but we’re also getting screwed over because we’re paying thousands in tuition just so professors can deliver their notes to the masses and not individual classes. Ask yourself, don’t you feel more liable to handing in homework in our Creative Writing class where we see our instructor every week and knows us by our names.

It’s funny because sometimes I’ll show up to lecture and simply looking at the lecture hall, I know damn well that there were more students registered than seats. Every once in a while, when the entire class actually decides to show up – like review days or a hard chapter – you’ll notice that there isn’t space for everyone to sit. You’ll see people sitting on the floor in the back. Beautiful. Pay thousands in tuition to sit on the floor. #RUScrew.  

It’s also a disadvantage because while trying to branch out and find opportunities for internships, research, etc you need recommendation letters. No professor is going to recommend you if they don’t even know your name. I’ve had the same professor for 2 semesters now and she still doesn’t know my name. I don’t blame her either… for her to know my name, I have to put in the extra effort of making appearances at her office hours – whether I need them or not.

While we can’t avoid classes that are lecture halls, we can try to work around the distance that they create between a student and an instructor. I recommend being proactive and starting as early as possible.

1. Me personally, office hours are hard to get to because I have a packed schedule and work on top of that. However, every once in a while I’ll try to make it.
2. Stay 10 minutes after lecture to just say hi to the professor and ask a few questions on at least one thing you were confused on. Doing that every once in a while adds up
3. Some professors are super nice and if you email them, they’re willing to create extra office hours for you.

Part of being a Rutgers student is learning how to work around the #RUScrews and normally it requires some time and willpower but it’s doable!!

While some other #RUScrews may seem exaggerated, this one is a reality – one that you actually have to live with every day, at least for that school year. Dorming at Rutgers is a process, one which screws you over at every step of the way. When you come in as a First year student you already are at a disadvantage because you get what you’re given and that’s it. All you can really do is put in your preference of campus, which for most, often gets disregarded. My friends put in Livingston as their first option but what did they get? Their last option of Cook-Doug.

It’s all just up to the Housing Gods for that freshman year. You pray that you get what you want but you know that you’re at the bottom of the chain at that moment, your time will come next year. Wrong.

It starts out with the basic step of applying to get a housing number. How is this unique number earned? COMPLETELY RANDOM. You’d think that perhaps your grades or campus activity would earn you something better but nope! My friend who’s a freshman got a lottery number of 15 meanwhile I know seniors who got, like, 9000. Fair? No. It’s not fair because through this lottery number, and seniority points, you get to pick your slot of housing selection day and time.Now, if you have a high number, you’re basically fucked because you’ll be picking in the last days of the housing selection process, meaning you’ll have the fine opportunity of picking from the shittiest options out there. A senior could get stuck living in a double at the Quads. That is pure #RUScrew 100.

My friends and I got heavily #RUScrewed just a few weeks ago, as we were stressing about our living situation for the next year. Everyone knows that the Busch Suites are Sophomore “guaranteed” housing. It’s like the unwritten rule that Sophomores get them, especially considering that it’s reverse seniority for them. We had everything sorted with everyone living on Busch and who would go in what room. It was in the works for weeks. Our lottery number wasn’t even that high it was between the 4000s-5000s. After submitting the applications, we finally felt like could breath. What a lie that was.

We got the email that neither groups – the boys or the girls – got the Suites. That shit hurted. After that we were all forced, to struggle to find doubles and in completely different campuses, too. That housing process really duped us. You think you can figure your way around it but nah.  

The worst aspect of it is that we’re all paying roughly the same ballpark, from the average, for all the dorming places, too – yet some people get lavish living conditions. My floormates and I cooked like fresh meat in the oven as we lived at the Quads in the beginning of the year. My other friends who got lucky enough to get dorms with AC on Busch cranked up the AC, studying in prime conditions. Most people are willing to pay those extra couple hundred bucks to get air conditioned dorm so they can survive the heat waves. If my friends and I had gotten the suites, we would have had our own bathroom that we could’ve shared it with people we know, rather than communal bathrooms per floors.

The housing process is just one of the most stressful #RUScrews and you never really come out escaping it. Those who have been through it, they know. Share your stories for figuring out your dorming situation in the comments below!

During my summer orientation I was provided the best of the best. All the newbies got to stay in the Livi apartments with the nice AC, eat at the Livi dining hall, tour around the “hot spots” of campus, and basically see all the campus in its glory. I remember eating my first meal at the Livingston dining hall. I was so fascinated. It was like an all you can eat buffet with restaurant style seating – I thought that Rutgers dining services was really A1. Little did I know that was just a mask.

Once you become accustomed to the ins and outs of Rutgers, you realize there are certainly holes in dining system, leaving multiple students #RUScrewed over.

I think the RUScrew that hits home first is always the one where there is a financial loss so here’s the biggest one of them all: if you’re a student with a meal plan, know early on that YOUR MEAL SWIPES DO NOT CARRY OVER TO THE NEXT SEMESTER. Yes, it’s true… your 100 meal swipes at the end of the semester, roughly worth a thousand dollar will go straight to waste. What’s worse is that when you come in as a freshman who’s dorming, you’re required to purchase the minimum of 210 block plan. I ended my first semester with 78 meal swipes wasted. It sucks because I knew I wouldn’t be using them all up when I bought the plan but I had no other option. For other students who may be commuters and purchase lower meal plans, know this – you’re also getting screwed over because those individual meals cost you more than the higher package value ones. It’s not one set price. It’s as if you’re shopping at wholesale store, you get more per unit if you buy in bulk.

Now, because we tend to become bound to these meal plans, the aim is to use them as often and wherever possible. Since I dorm on Livingston I eat most of my meals there and am accustomed to the decent quality of food offered there. One day, I was tight for time and had classes only on Busch. I was starving so I made a quick stop to eat at the Busch Dining hall. I was in there for 3 minutes. In the span of those 3 minutes, I surveyed the food offered and when I asked for vegetarian options, they said they were out of vegetarian patties, so I attempted to eat dessert but was greeted by flies hovering over the entire dessert section. I headed straight out the door after that. That’s just Busch campus, I hear things about Brower that have successfully been enough warning signs for me to avoid even going near Brower. Brower is said to put laxatives in their food and while that may be a huge rumor, I’m not willing to try and prove it wrong.

With the big University we are, it’s simply not right having decent food only accessible on certain campuses. It’s a big RUScrew for students because many of them find themselves travelling far just to get a meal. My friends from Busch campus come to Livingston dining hall every other day for dinner. They just can’t deal with Busch Dining hall food alone. It doesn’t offer the variety others do. College Ave students are downright wasting their meal plans because their only source of edible food comes from restaurants that they would pay out of pocket for.

I personally have to venture to Harvest Cafe every once in a while because as a vegetarian I have even less options for food and proper sources of nutrition. You would think that a University that’s as diverse as Rutgers would account for the actual meaning of diversity.

Last but not least I don’t know if I’m the only one who feels screwed over by this but the timings for all food places tend to be a little off. I think that Henry’s shouldn’t be so extra with their meal swipe timings, especially on the weekends because I would like to eat breakfast earlier than 2 pm. Furthermore, I think that most of the University dining services shutting down as early as 8 pm on the weekends is not right. Are we just supposed to starve for the next 12 hours until we can get a proper breakfast meal? #RUScrew. In the words of my friend, “If you don’t start thinking about dinner and making moves for dinner by 7 pm at Rutgers, then you’re basically not eating that night.” They don’t even have takeout on Fridays and Saturdays. And honestly, most days of the week, takeout is nothing but a oily fuckfest. It’s so unhealthy, in my opinion. Granted that (at least for Livi) Sbarros stays open till 10 but one can only eat so much pizza and so many wings.

Come on Rutgers, get moving on providing your students with fuel they need to run the engine in their heads.  

Throwing it back to the days when a yellow bus showed up at my street, drove me, and dropped me right at the entrance of my school, I realize I did not appreciate how easy it was to get an education. We didn’t have to worry about the struggle of getting to class. But college changes all that. Perhaps if you were a student for a small university it isn’t all that bad – walking from one end of campus to the other. But what do you do when your University is 2700 acres and requires getting on a highway to travel to your next class? You get royally RUScrewed that’s what. Students of Rutgers want to do nothing more than drive safely to their class but the struggle is PARKING.

If you are a commuter you have no way to avoid this RUScrew. You have to apply for a parking permit and while you can list your preferences, you aren’t guaranteed the campus you want. Have all your class on Livi but you got a permit only for Cook/Doug? Tragic. Got a 8:00 am class on College Ave but only a parking permit for Livi? Tragic; park at Livi just so you can catch another bus to go back in the direction of College Ave. Not only do you drop between $300 to $400 bucks for this permit, we risk another $50 dollar ticket every time you park on a campus you don’t have a permit for. We’re college students. If we’re known for spending no more than $0.50 for Ramen Noodles then how can a University expect us to pay these absurd tickets. It’s so unrealistic. Like, they really should offer more free parking spots on every campus.

What’s worse is living at one campus and getting a parking pass for another one. Like what is the point of that. Why would someone park their car at a location where they would be forced to take a bus ride just to get to the car. It really defeats the purpose of a car. My friend who lives on Busch bought a parking pass so she could also get a part time job. Rutgers rewarded her with a useless parking pass for Cook/Doug. She spent a week trying to make that work where she would get up extra 30-40 minutes to catch a RexB and get her car from Cook/Doug so then she could drive off campus to a nearby Walmart to work. She realized she was wasting so much time that eventually she quit the job. Yet her parking pass stayed. The fucking useless Cook/Doug parking pass.

For me, the parking pass wasn’t even a concern until one day my mom came by to drop off some groceries. She simply parked at the Quads parking lot for 15 minutes so she could help me carry everything up and eventually she received a $50 dollar fine in her email. It was bizarre. We’re students and we live here, I think at least in the residential area there should be a few short-term parking slots. It was a good thing that I had made my mom a RU DOTS account where I had registered my car in case I ever had to park it on campus for those one day passes. According to the email with the fine, if I hadn’t registered my car’s license plates then there was a chance that they would’ve towed that shit away. #RUScrew.Believe me, this RUScrew doesn’t feel as real until you personally come across it. When you have like 10 tickets racked up, which you didn’t know about, and your Rutgers account goes on a financial hold, it really hits you hard. Maybe, just maybe if we weren’t such a big university, we would have an easier time. But until then, we stay getting that RUScrew from this big administration.

I used to think I loved math and could work through any problem given. College Ave introduced me to one of the more unique problems in my life: getting that GODDAMN RATIO. Welcome to Rutgers University – the school that is home to thousands of students yet only has tiny ass basements that must host hundreds of students altogether in a party. For the uncultured students of Rutgers, a ratio is more than just a math term where you try to solve for x by comparing two values. No. Here those two values are very much alive and one is clearly worth more than the other. Girls are a commodity when it comes to partying at Rutgers. Without having as little as three girls for every guy to as many as twelve girls for every guy, a guy can’t expect to make it into a party. Bye-bye to those plans for a #thirstythursday.

How is this a #RUScrew? When you think about it, it’s quite simple actually. Rutgers is big. Very big. The frats, they’re not so big. They’re like fraternities of every other college, small with one house per frat. And in all honesty, we’re a public university so it isn’t like these frats are getting that $$ to upgrade those houses. We’re such a big college that it’s impossible for everyone to believe that they can go party every weekend… there simply isn’t enough space. And the selfish part comes in that obviously the frats aren’t going to to dance with themselves – a guy next to a guy – so they favor to let the girls in. Are boys allowed? Sure. But priority goes to the frat brothers. My friends at smaller universities get into parties SO easily and they’re much bigger houses with ceilings that aren’t hitting your head at the jump of every music beat. I remember my friend walked out one night saying, “Shet, my head dusty, I’m finna get a concussion hitting that wood.” It’s just the price you pay for being a small part of a big administration. #RUScrew.

I thought that my first weekend living here as a freshman would be the prime time to explore the party scene at Rutgers. I was all about making new friends in college so I met friends of friends and before I knew it we were a big group of 15 something kids walking around College Ave. It. Was. Awful. I spent hours walking around not getting into a SINGLE party. I literally did not understand. My best friend from Drexel was with me and we got so tired we decided to sit down at a bench and the others went on. After a while of talking we thought we’d take another lap but we were pretty discouraged and knew we’d end up heading back to the dorms.

Guys. We got into the FIRST party we went to alone – just us to girls. We felt so stupid for trying to stick around and be “loyal” to people we didn’t even know. It really was an educational moment for me, though. Guys can be real desperate and girls have got ALL the power on College Ave.

Now that it’s deep in the semester, I’ve made more friends and honestly it sucks going to a party without them. If they can’t get in then it’s not even worth it. The #RUScrew really forces me to choose between screwing over my own guy friends or having that “fun” night out. It’s all good though, we boycott that #RUScrew and just chill on our own… we don’t need those parties anyways.