The Response

Ooh, harsh...

As you can see, they were not pleased. The university sent a letter to me, my parents and the principal of my school. The letter said that I was not a reasonable person and that I may experience some difficulty adjusting to a university environment.

My friend who handed in the National terrorist assignment got exactly the same letter, except with the words "National Terrorist" substituted for "Jedi". And apparently they found her assignment "personally offensive", whereas mine was only "offensive".

Here is a copy of the letter they sent:

Dear Patricia,

The purpose of this letter is to discuss the assessment you submitted as part of the requirements for the Tertiary Awareness Program. The task required you to compile a report on your chosen career path. As you are already aware, you have chosen to report on a career as a Jedi. Even if this is the career path you aspire to, your report (as an academic paper and piece of assessment) falls well below what any other reasonable person would deem acceptable.

It appears obvious to us and other staff of the program who have looked at the paper, that you have chosen to show blatant disregard for the value of the assessment piece and therefore the entire program. By not taking the assessment seriously, you have given up a valuable opportunity to guage how you would possibly perform at university level and have also missed out on some very useful feedback, which you would have received had you handed in a reasonable piece of work. Your parents very generously paid $160 for you to have the opportunity to get a head start in your university career. We certainly do not feel as though your parents have received value for their money - given that you have chosen not to maximise the opportunities presented to you.

The purpose of the assessment is to give you the opportunity to make all of the mistakes before it actually counts towards your academic history. You have made a conscious decision not to take the activity seriously, rather than be at all conscientious about your future university career. We find you paper offensive from the perspective that you have shown such disrespect for the program and therefore us and the hard work we have put in to developing the program.

You have now failed the assessment component of the program, which equates to failing a unit at university. At university, this would have cost either you or your parents at least $430 and would also possibly add a further six months to your degree.

If this is any indication of how you would respond in a mature and responsible academic community, you may experience some difficulty adjusting to a university environment.

If you wish to discuss the assessment piece, or any other aspect of this letter, please do not hesitate to contact us on (07) 49309667. We wish you all the best with your future studies.

Yours faithfully

(names withheld in case they ever find this and get pissed off at me all over again)

I brought the letter home to my parents, who found it hilarious and rang up all of my relatives to tell them about it. However, they told me I had better keep the peace and write a letter of apology, so I did and we arranged a meeting with the deputy principal about the matter. The deputy principal bailed at the last minute and made another teacher deal with it (who my dad later described as being nervous as a "fart in a teacup").

Here is my (quite truthful) apology:

7 July 1999

Dear (names withheld),

I am writing to apologise for submitting my TAP assignment to you and did not expect you to take offence at its contents as it followed the guidelines correctly and was written in the spirit of light-heartedness and I was not at all sure of my career path. After we, the TAP students, were told that we were not allowed to submit our English Reports for assessment, we were then told that the TAP assignment was optional. Mindful of this, my mother wrote a letter to (teacher in charge, name withheld), requesting that I be excused from the assignment. However, at the end of Term Two, (teacher in charge, name withheld) told us that everyone was to hand in an assignment by the end of the term or be faced with detentions every day of Term Three. Therefore, I quickly wrote the aforementioned assignment and did not hadn in the letter, for at that time there were only two days of school left in that term. However, this did not justify my actions and I deeply apologise for any offence I may have caused in the submission of my assignment. I did not intend to ridicule you in any way and I am sorry if you felt otherwise.

Yours sincerely

Patricia Khoo