Building opportunity

Seeing as though this is my first blog post in eight months... I ought to explain myself!

 

Teaching computer class (among many other things) here at the Lycée Provincial de Koudougou has truly been the opportunity of a lifetime. The amount that I've learned in the past year and a half, from teaching to computer repair to managing a network to working to start a nonprofit business to becoming professionally competent in a foreign language... has left me struggling to keep pace with myself. It hasn't always been easy, with many late nights, some rough early mornings and a fair number of expected and unexpected frustrations... but I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing right now (though if they had $6 Pizza Hut lunch buffets here, I wouldn’t complain…)

Having a decadent lunch a few blocks away from school.

Everyone deserves a challenging opportunity like this. And since I will be the last Peace Corps volunteer at my particular high school, capping off our 6-year mission here, ensuring that happens is kind of my job right now. I’m currently working with a small group of teachers and top students, giving them some training on everything that goes on here so they can take the project towards new heights in the coming years. I’ll do my best to explain what we’re up to now, though my English is admittedly a little rusty!

c. November 2012

To pick up where I left of last time, I spent a lot of time over the summer of 2013 figuring out ways to improve from the previous year. In November 2012, I had only two weeks to get the computers fully installed, finish lesson planning, and configure an improvised server setup before starting class. So I was happy to have the luxury of time for a change to really figure things out.

The newest IT teachers at Lycée Provincial de Koudougou!

One of the more intellectually challenging tasks was setting up a server that allows password protected accounts. This was a big complaint of students last year—anyone could go into anyone else’s personal folder and delete their work. Of course, this was more of an excuse than anything. Students that didn’t save correctly (and thus couldn’t get credit) sometimes tried to shift the blame. But thanks to a server sent to us by Friends of Burkina Faso last spring, and a decent number of hours spent figuring out how to use Red Hat Linux, getting comfortable with the command line and .conf files, everyone, including teachers, has their own private folder.

Fedora 8 and Windows 7 working happily together.

Something else that also works much better this year: the projector! Last year, the one we had was on its last legs—it would overheat and shut off after little more than 5 minutes. It helped keep the lectures short… but was overall less than ideal. Another shout-out to Friends of Burkina Faso for financing a new one, which lasts for the entire two hours if need be.

Last year, I also posted some photos of groups of students congregated around computers, leaving open the other perfectly functional machines around them. This was a drastic measure I had taken in class to accommodate for the terribly slow internet speed. We only had a 128kbps connection—hardly faster than dial-up, and shared between the 40+ computers in both of our classrooms. So, finding a way to improve this situation was a priority if we ever wanted to effectively work with the internet in class.

One of the difficult realities is that Burkina Faso is so far afield from the main infrastructure of the internet that it has to compete with every other country in West Africa for space on the undersea cables that go to Europe and the USA. As a result, the monthly price for a connection that would be slightly below average back in the States is extremely expensive-- $160 for 1 Mbps—close to the monthly salary of a full-time teacher here. We had looked into upgrading to this sort of subscription but ran into some bureaucratic difficulties that forced us to consider other options.

Africa's connections to the rest of the world.

Paling in comparison to every other continent, though new connections are opening up to South America.

The most promising alternative has been the new 3.75G cell network that has recently come to Koudougou. The connection speed is even faster than the 1 Mbps “high-speed” line that we were considering—the first time I tried it, I was stunned by how pages loaded immediately. Looking at the big picture, it makes a lot of sense why this might be our best option. Computers are still unaffordable to the average person here, but nearly everyone has a cell phone, and for a little extra investment (as little as $20 if used), one can get a smartphone that is internet-capable. So it’s just a matter of adapting the better-developed smartphone infrastructure to our needs (and perhaps adjusting the curriculum a bit to adapt to the fact more of the business that’s done on computers in the US is doable on phones here).

As anyone who has a 3G/4G data plan can attest, mobile internet, at least by volume, is more expensive than the DSL line at the house! This is definitely a challenge, but it’s also something where the circumstances may work in our favor. Most of our classes cover basic computer use and MS Office with a few (less than a third) of sessions directly related to the internet. We don’t need to download huge files or stream video; we just need the net to run quickly during the research project we give the students as part of the basic course so they aren’t left waiting half an hour for a page of text to load. Since we only need this at very specific times, and not all the time the entire year, it makes sense to only pay for what we use.

The plan: connect the USB modem to a computer and share that computer's connection via the WAN port of a router.

As I mentioned earlier, we have also been working to update the curriculum. Given the rapid rise in mobile adoption, the growing usefulness of the internet in Burkina-specific contexts, the new server, and the switch to Windows 7, it has been really necessary to make sure that our teaching remains relevant! The new projector has helped a lot to this end—I have been able to produce better quality Power Point presentations complete with animations designed to better explain concepts that some students found difficult last year. We are able to focus a lot more vocabulary (so that when the teacher says to open “Windows Explorer” the students know exactly what to do)—and can more easily make those associations with the help of a projection. The teachers in training can use the slides as a base for their classes and easily suggest changes as necessary.

Mr. Kabré on Day 2 of class.

One of the most notable changes from last year, however, has been the drop in the student:teacher ratio. We are now beating most liberal-arts colleges back in the States now with 4 teachers for every 26 students maximum. I am present in all 4 sections of class that we currently offer, but I take a backseat in all but 1 of them—the teacher in training leads the class. They are helped by 2 experienced students (who did well in the class last year), and all 4 of us circulate around the room during the practical activities to make sure everyone understood the lesson. This has been especially helpful for the first few classes, where many of the students aren’t yet comfortable with the keyboard and mouse and just need a little more encouragement and guidance to keep trying. It’s a lot of fun, too! I never want to teach class alone again.

Leading class with Mr. Ouattara

But as anyone who know how much liberal arts colleges cost will know, the student:teacher ratio doesn’t come free. In past years, when only the volunteer was involved in teaching (and thus paid by Peace Corps), we didn’t need to charge for the class, and those of you who can remember from my post last year, in 2012, I chose the students based solely on an application essay. But since we have new Burkinabé teachers who will replace me next year (Peace Corps can’t pay them! Nor can the school… yet), we had to figure out a system that would sustainably work for everyone. But despite my analogy to liberal arts colleges, the class fee really is minimal-- 5000 Francs ($10). This also ought to cover some of the maintenance expenses of the lab that will come up as the computers age. We promise them at least 40 hours of class time—so 25 cents an hour, half the price of a cybercafé’s hourly rate and less than half of the price of an equivalent class offered by the cybercafé. If our work impresses the school administration and parents' association enough, we might be able to lower the price even more.

Hermann Nebie explains how to use the mouse to some of the beginning students.

 And I think that together, we will be able to do this. Every time we finish a class, we all feel a rush of positive energy, despite it being 8 PM and the end of a long day (most of our classes are evening classes). Students pass by every day asking if it isn’t too late to sign up. Everyone even showed up on the day of a general strike, because I forgot to say that class was cancelled! It’s a motivating atmosphere.

Mr. Kandé, the sysadmin-in-training.

If I’ve learned anything in my time here, it’s that the job doesn’t stop at the end of class time, or even grading/lesson planning time. Running a computer lab requires running and configuring a server, maintaining and fixing computers and figuring out how to make all of this a financially sustainable proposition. As tiring as it all is (apparently schools in the US often have several people who manage these challenges without even worrying about classes…), it is an unparalleled way of learning new, marketable tech savvy. The thought of adding some real, concrete skills to my résumé has helped me through some late nights here. Similar thoughts motivate the teachers I work with, so it’s with great enthusiasm that they are also learning how to work the server, cut new Ethernet cables and troubleshoot malfunctioning computers, whether they are ours or one of our less technically inclined colleagues (who often bring in their computers for us to fix).

Measuring out 100m of ethernet cable outside an electronics market in Ouagadougou.

Cutting up the cable with Mr. Kombassere and Mr. Tuena of Lycée Municipal de Koudougou (our crosstown rivals!)

The majority of teachers at our school now own computers, and Ziba (co-manager of the computer lab) and I are the go-to tech guys in case of any problems. I enjoyed helping people out for the first few months of my time here as I was waiting for class to start, but as soon as I got busy, it became an additional chore in an already stressful environment. Ziba wanted to charge them, but was afraid of how that would be seen. We decided to charge for our services but use all of the money earned from that to make small improvements to the lab, and cover the various little expenses that the administration couldn’t regularly pay for, like towels for cleaning the computers, maintenance of the air conditioners and certificates for students who successfully completed the class.

At the awards ceremony last year.

Most people needed fairly simple things like an antivirus, but occasionally we would get a special request or a particularly stubborn computer that would require us to get something from Ouagadougou (Burkina’s capital city, an hour and a half bus ride from here). People wanted to buy computers, but didn’t know who they could trust (there are many merchants who sell cheap but unreliable computers without warranties here, to catch unsuspecting people who look only at the price). To satisfy these demands we partnered with Steve Amodio, a Burkina RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer) living in Ouagadougou who runs a business importing used computers from the US. Our sales commissions will help us buy more tools allowing us to do even more technical repairs which the advanced students are able to follow as part of their class.

Wilson Traoré, Patrice Yameogo, and Boris Bazie test and switch out malfunctioning disc drives.

These “advanced students” are the same ones I mentioned earlier who help out with teaching the class to the beginners. While we can’t pay them for their help, they do receive a free class on computer maintenance every Saturday mornings with opportunities to put their knowledge into practice during their free hours throughout the week. They help us clean the lab every Saturday before class (no janitors here!), and get two hours of free time to play with our computers afterwards. They also sign up for special projects involving everything from marketing to general operations (one is in charge of noting the schedule for Ziba and I and tacking it outside our door). Last Saturday, we managed all this through Google Drive (though a last-minute tech issue limited us to one computer – our 3G provider needs to give us a fixed IP address), and I spent Monday tracing out the logistics of grouping the students to accomplish the various tasks.

Switching around the keys to turn an American computer into a French one.

One of the students really impressed me that day as well. One proposed project has been creating ID cards to better identify students who are and aren't allowed to use the lab. As there are nearly 3000 students at the school (from 6eme to Terminale - 6th grade to senior year) and only 27 computers open to students, we are still at a ratio of over 100 to 1! We allow only sophomores and up to take the class, and only those who are currently enrolled or have taken (and passed) the class in the past to come during their free periods, less than 200 in total. We want to bump up that last number, having a more organized system will help. The above-mentioned student created a great prototype design in about an hour. He will work on it some more with his group tomorrow and we will pitch the final design to the administration on Friday.

Jean Yameogo works with Windows XP on the left and Windows 8 on the right.

Heading into tomorrow, the schedule looks tighter than ever. We have three different computers to turn around for repairs, a server to reconfigure (not recognizing the backup router) and a number of lessons to prepare, but fortunately students have a lot of free periods on Thursdays and I think we will get a lot done. Mistakes will be made, we may fall a little short of our expectations, but we'll probably learn a few interesting things too. Here's to another full day in Koudougou!

Before I conclude this (somewhat lengthy) update, I just want to thank you all for your many letters and positive thoughts. I hope this post helps explain where I'm at, even if I (probably) haven't managed to write back. I am expecting at least a few more intense months here, so I don't know when I can promise my next update, but will try to keep it interesting.

School's out!

Indeed, it's been quite a year.

12 months ago, I was saying goodbye to you all, and wondering how the heck I would arrive at teaching classes in a language I'd only studied for a few months.

10 months ago, I visited my school for the first time during training, and then managed to pull off a decent intro class in "model school".

8 months ago, I went to my first teacher's meeting and hardly understood a word.

6 months ago, construction in our computer lab finished, and I finally got to start class for real.

4 months ago, we finally got moving, after strikes and weird cancellations calmed down a bit.

And it's really within these four months that most of the work has gotten done. I had mentioned final projects in my last post-- those are all graded now, and we had an end-of-year ceremony this past week. Some of the students did a really impressive job: one wrote 19 news/opinion articles on his blog, and another used Excel to do a pretty solid breakdown of how much of the expenses from building a house stay in-country, complete with a blueprint of said house (Dad will appreciate this). I really enjoyed the family histories that many of them wrote on Word, and will have to translate a few into English to share.

The pace of life has been pretty furious up until about now, between all the grading, planning and other business. So, I'm hoping to finally get some pause to reflect on how to make next year even better. In the meantime, selling and fixing computers as a fundraiser for our lab has been a success I'm not quite sure how to contain... if you're reading this and happen to have an old-but-working laptop, there is someone here who will buy it!

Finals month already?

Hard to believe, but true! My last update was in February, when we were midway through the second trimester. We had a week and a half of spring break at the end of March, and have just finished the second week of the final one, which finishes in mid-May.

Burkina trimesters, however, aren't created equal as they are in the States. The fall trimester is usually pretty laid back, with very few papers and tests, and some tolerance for interruption. The second semester is when everyone attempts to catch up. And the final trimester seems to be chock full of evaluation. The students in Terminale (12th grade) and 3eme (9th grade, last year of middle school here) just had their practice exams last week for the BAC and BEPC, tests that they must pass to advance to university/high school. There is high demand for computers during off hours-- students come and do research for their assigned papers. Everyone is much busier than they were back in October.

Our "finals month" started off with finishing up some business from last semester. Earlier in March, I had everyone choose a topic related to IT to research-- from the Apple II to Google Glass. After their research, they prepared a Power Point presentation, and I graded them on the quality of their research, their written presentation, their oral presentations, thoughtful questions they asked of other presenters, and how well they responded to questions that they recieved. It was a lot of fun-- the idea of points for asking good questions really got everyone involved (and embarrassed the ones who didn't do their research). I could turn this into something like a game show next year.

Correct! One point.

The students now have the rest of the month to do a final project of their choosing (based on a list of suggestions that I provided). Some examples:

Write a children's book using MS word!

Pictured: Bernard Bacye, working on his story Le dernier gardien de l'arbre. (The last guardian of the tree) The paper at the bottom right: an illustration he drew. We took a picture of it today, in the absence of a working scanner, and it's now on his cover page.

Interview family elders and write down some of their stories.

Pictured: Rania Koala, writing an account about her family titled L'origine des Koalas. If you look carefully enough, you might notice a picture of a koala on her screen.

Imagine that you had 70,000 FCFA ($140) to start a business. Come up with a list of expenses and revenues, and estimate your monthly profits over the course of a year using MS Excel.

Pictured: Véronique Sondo imagines how she might start up a restaurant. After coming up with a complete list of startup expenses, she is thinking about how much she might get away with selling a plate of riz sauce for.

Improve the speed and accuracy of your typing. Try not to look at the keyboard.

Pictured: Alassane Diabaté is hoping to find temporary work this summer as a secretary, and is shooting for 30-40 wpm (a little harder on French keyboards).

Come up with an art project using GIMP.

Pictured: Wilson Traore uses an improvised light table to trace some pencil-sketched comics with a dark pen. We used the photo below to transfer his drawing to the computer.

And so the fun continues. It's really a pleasure to have a group that now knows the basics of how to use a computer-- that was something that I struggled with at first, coming from a place where that sort of knowledge is assumed. There are a lot of ways I could improve the class next year, and I'm looking forward to having June off to reflect on the curriculum. But I'm excited to see what comes out of these projects! Really proud of this group after a long, full week of work.






And lest I forget...

Some students (not pictured) have started a blog as their project and are putting up local news stories. If you're versed in French, or care to take a chance with Google translate, here is the link:

Burkina News Network

2013

54 days into the New Year might be a bit late to be writing a post like this... but there's been a lot going on to write about!

I kicked off the year with a nice bike ride through the savannah with my host brother, Mohammad:

Then I joined a couple of other volunteers to treat ourselves to an entire day of American-style home-cooking in the capital!

After that, it was down to business. Classes started up again without too many of the usual interruptions (strikes, surprise holidays, etc.). It's been a routine of sorts, but with enough variety the Peace Corps values of patience and flexibility a necessity. I like it that way.

How else could...

...one celebrate Christmas in mid-January, when everyone's packages finally arrived!

... someone bring in a 14-year old laptop and expect you to fix it?

... you attempt to teach 30 teenagers how to use the internet on a 128 kbps connection (hardly enough to stream video/Skype for just one person)?

... find a good plate of beans for 100 FCFA ($0.20)

... or buy 600 fresh, organic tomatoes for 5000 FCFA ($10)

... and then stay up 'til midnight turning it all into tomato paste.

That's a project that's been keeping me from having days off... in-season tomatoes aren't going to wait for us! I'm finally giving myself a weekend this time around, so I have more time than I'm used to, to reflect (and sleep late).

I'm headed off the Bobo-Dioulasso this morning (Burkina's 2nd largest city), but will be back in time to Skype and fill you in on these and other stories tomorrow night!

zero.eth

Bonne fête!

I last posted right before Thanksgiving ... and now it's the day after Christmas! Is it just me, or has time been flying?

And yet every week has been different. Thanksgiving was mostly just a regular working day during my second week of teaching. I had wanted to celebrate with some other volunteers that weekend, but got caught up wiring a network and some network software between all of the computers, which is something that now lets me shut down, freeze, or control any/all of the computers in the lab. The first time I got it to work in class, the students were duly impressed. Too bad they could easily disable it if they learn well: all they need to do is unplug the network cable.

But, I didn't get to demonstrate my work that next week... because classes were suddenly cancelled! Call it an "election break". As a precaution, the Ministry of Education closed all the schools for the five days in advance of the municipal elections on December 2nd. And we thought that the US elections were intense...

The break gave me some time to catch up on badly-needed lesson planning that I'm continuing on now. I had gone straight from setting up the lab to teaching, so it has hardly been an organized class. But as you might guess, that also was interrupted by a two week stay in Ouaga for In-Service-Training (IST).

IST was in general, pretty good. It was fascinating to catch up all of the other volunteers in my group, and hear stories from all across Burkina Faso. Life in village of a couple thousand in the bush is vastly different from life in a college town that's the third largest city in the country. And that is still very different from life in Ouaga, where planes fly overhead every other hour, a couple of streets look like they could have been lifted in from Europe, and real mozzarella cheese is available. In Ouaga, we enjoyed four formal class sessions every day, with snacks and a lunch in between, and the evenings were free for us to exhaust ourselves and our paychecks on cab rides to downtown restaurants, groceries, and clubs. Or in my case, poker games, Settlers of Catan, reading thriller novels late into the evening, and one wine and cheese party-- the wine being from locally made vintage: bissap (hibiscus flower juice), baobob fruit, shea nuts, oranges, etc.

I spent one night back at site midway through our training, to visit the Nuits Atypiques de Koudougou-- a yearly festival celebrating new and "atypical" food, music, and crafts. I think I've mentioned an informal group that I work with in a previous post-- we bottle tomato sauce, and had hoped to show off our work at a booth there. This plan got cancelled at the last minute for reasons too complicated to describe here, but we managed to turn a disappointment into a way to look for some new opportunities. There are a lot of people here who make packaged foods locally, but trying to go up against imported competition is hard to do alone. We'd like to form some sort of coalition.

Coming back after finishing IST, I arrived in a town that had just partied hard and was cleaning up in the aftermath. The 11 of December, Burkina Faso's national holiday, was celebrated in Koudougou this year, with the President and many other officials in attendance. I wish I could say more about it-- but I wasn' t there to see it. There's always next year.

But coming back, I also recieved a warm welcome from my neighbors and co-workers here. I'm really thankful for that. There are some cultures where foreigners are given a lot of distance, but fortunately Burkina Faso is not one of them. While it's been tough not being with family on Christmas, my friends here have helped me feel comfortable and more than full at their parties.

Next up-- a free week, to puzzle out the different moving pieces of life before making any New Year's resolutions. Thinking about it, 2012 has been a pretty wild year-- I could call it the year of no routine. I'd like to keep the adventure going into 2013, but enjoy some more organization. I'll be ringing in the year in Saponé, with my host family from training.

IT Class in Burkina Faso: An Managed Chaos?

Time for another mid-week update! Staying up unusally late again on a Tuesday night, but happy that I don't have to deal with the application process anymore, and can instead get ready to work with my excellent students.

After a rocky start last week-- between rushing to finish getting everything physically ready, figuring out lesson plans, and figuring out how to manage a class of 30 kids in front of computers (many for the very first time), I think I'm on the right track. But boy, every class is a different animal. I suggested a post about lesson planning last week-- but any ounce of lesson planning ought to be amended by a few pounds of flexibility. Here are some things that are prone to happen:

Brownouts 

Sometimes, the electricity just gives. The number of computers that we have running at once can be a strain on our own circuit, but often times, the brownouts are citywide. This was a real challenge today. It's nice to have a 50 : 50 desktop-laptop ratio in the room. If the cut is just for a few minutes, the kids can pair up and share the laptops running on battery power. Or crowd around someone who is doing something interesting...

Note: the above picture is from last week, when only 8 computers were fully set up for student use.

Clic gauche!

Most of my students have never used a computer before. So, it's fascinating to watch them play around with one for the first time. They can discover new ways of doing things that many of us experienced users might otherwise overlook. That said, they can often get stuck. A common confusion is mixing up right and left clicking.

"Monsieur, monsieur!"

I get this a lot when someone gets stuck. The question is when to respond. Sometimes, it's a really easy problem that their groupmates might help them with. But between 30 used computers and new users, it can get more complicated. My troubleshooting skills have already improved a ton.

 

Hmmm, after mentioning "groupmates", I should explain a little how the class is organized. We have 6 tables by design. In a class of 30, there are about 20-25 who are true beginners, and the rest have gone to an internet café at some point. I mentioned doing a bit of a test the first week-- this allowed me to split up the kids who already know a little bit, and have at least one at every table. The idea is that they'll be able to help out their classmates with the basics, which is all that we are focusing on for the moment. So far, that seems to be going really well. Burkinabé students really look out for each other-- it might have something to do with the fact that three to four of them share a bench made for two all through elementary and middle school (this balloons a normal class size to 60 or more!)

You might have noticed the perhaps-excessive photo doctoring above. I haven't figured out how to take decent photos in the dark with my point-and-shoot. So I have to compensate somehow... I'll be doing more of this tomorrow night, with my tomato sauce canning group-- we'll be making our label, after bottling 4 liters yesterday. Enough for a Thanksgiving feast!

Enjoy, and until next time!

- ETH

From 0 to 100...

About two weeks ago, I wasn't terribly sure what I should be doing. I was bored. Then, we started installing the new computers... and that's where I left you at.

Well, after another week about not being sure about logistics, drumming up a buzz about IT class, and pulling a near-all-nighter to get everything in order before the first class, that's now nearly finished!

Yes, I said "nearly" finished. Indeed, we've started class without being 100% prepared, but that's just life here. We are waiting on the administration to buy us new power strips, a telecom guy to get our network in order, and another technician lend us his tool so we can cut some more ethernet cables. Patience and adaptability is the name of the game here-- I hope to really have everything in order next week, in a relative sense. If not, I have a backup lesson in mind.

But what's most import, and exciting, is that class has really started, and I have a really motivated group of kids. How does a novice IT teacher handle that?

Well, last week I asked some questions:


1. Le cours d'informatique est facultatif. En place de note, on reçoit une attestation. Quelles sont vos motivations pour poursuivre ça?

IT class is optional. Instead of a grade, you will recieve a certificate. What are your motivations for pursuing it?


2. Quelles sont vos attentes? Qu'est-ce que vous voulez apprendre?

What are your expectations? What would you like to learn?


3. Imaginez que vous avez l'opportunité de rechercher des informations sur n'importe quel sujet. Quel sera votre premier sujet de recherche?

Imagine that you have the opportunity to research anything. What would be your first topic of choice?

A couple of days later, I wound up with this lovely stack of papers. I recieved exactly 201 responses (applications, really) for 120 spots. I read every one of them, and had to make tough decisions for every class. In fact, I'm still in that process for fourth and final class, which meets on Friday. I have 34 excellent papers, but only 30 spots. A lot of tough decisions are made with the third question, which I think is the most interesting one. I've gotten responses ranging from "Michael Jackson videos" to "finding practical science experiments, and then sharing them with women in my village to see if they can make new products for the market". By far, the most common response is some variation on "the history of Africa/Burkina Faso", including "Why do Europeans think that we don't have a history?" Considering how little African history I learned in school, they have a point. I've read their history books here, and while there's much more, compared to the American bias in our own textbooks, it's not a whole lot. I can understand their curiosity. In a future post, when they have Googling under their belts, I'll have to share their research.

That said, I have already had two classes this week. The first one was a bit rough. As mentioned earlier, I was up until 5 AM the night before getting disk drives, keyboards, a printer, and various software in working order, in addition to picking the students for that day's class. There was confusion among the students about when the class would start, so not everyone showed up. And while the room was in order, the lesson plan, and my French were a mess. But, it's all something to learn from. My second class today went much more smoothly. My next post is likely to be about lesson planning, and I think then, I'll be able to share more details.

But until then... I have to get back to work, which involves cutting 4 more students from my final class. :(

I have a new appreciation for admissions offices everywhere.