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After failing the college entrance examination, Yu Tao, a boy from Shanxi, met an admissions teacher at a college in Shaanxi. The other party promised to enroll in the college and graduate with a state-recognized college diploma. Three years later, he learned it was a hoax.
recruit students
Four years later, facing the representatives of the school and the human resources and social security department, I remembered the year of the college entrance examination.
For students with excellent grades, the summer after the college entrance examination is rose-colored. The admission notice arrived, and many years of hard study were rewarded, and praise followed. Some people go to the driver's license, some people go abroad to play, some people start to learn TOEFL, IELTS courses, and look forward to the vast world they are about to enter.
None of this has anything to do with me. In 2017, my college entrance examination score in Shanxi was more than 320 points, which was more than 100 points away from the second line of liberal arts. I wanted to repeat the study, but the tuition was high. My father hoped that I would go to college first and then obtain a bachelor's degree through self-examination in the future.
The picture | the village where the Tao family lives
The specialist admission score line is 130 points, which is far lower than my score, but I filled in two colleges in other provinces and were not admitted. On this day, when I was discouraged, my father passed by near the middle school where I had attended, and saw a group of people around a table, flipping through the stacked manuals and forms on the table, and asking the two people sitting at the table what to do. My father rushed over, heard the words "enrollment", "package allocation", and quickly called me and asked me to rush over immediately.
When I arrived, I saw my father with a happy face, and the person at the desk introduced himself, saying that he was an admissions teacher of "Shaanxi National Defense XXX College" who had come to Shanxi to enroll in the school. The two teachers repeated to me what they had already said to my father, saying that this school was in Shaanxi, a national key public institution, graduated with a college degree, signed an employment agreement when enrolled, and the school guaranteed to arrange employment in the future. He also said that my score could be enrolled, urging us to register quickly.
I will believe it. Colleges and universities are all volunteering from the Internet, how can they set up stalls on the side of the road to solicit customers? But his father was satisfied with the school that the teacher said, and the word "national defense" in the school name made him feel more at ease and in awe. The surrounding parents asked questions, and the admissions teacher's reply was full of flowers: there are tuition subsidies, high scholarships... In the midst of the uproar, I registered my personal information under the persuasion of my father, with the idea that "the teacher should not deceive people.".
The admissions teacher took out a booklet introducing the school's major and asked me to choose a major, and I discussed with my father to choose the direction of train power supply. The teacher registered well in the book, let us pay 800 yuan registration fee, copied my ID card and high school diploma, I thought to myself, the process is quite formal, and the doubts have been dispelled by a few points.
When I got home, I searched for this college on the Internet and found that its official website was colorful, the advertising window was floating, and there was a cottage atmosphere. Under the online question about the college, several sporadic answers are also mixed. My heart was worried again, so I told my father that I didn't want to go to this school.
In the follow-up phone contact, the admissions teacher probably sensed our hesitation. A few days later, a teacher surnamed Meng, who claimed to be the director of the school's admissions office, called and repeated the school's various benefits: it was established for more than 30 years, it is the largest railway school in the northwest region, and it can graduate with a state-recognized college diploma, get the relevant vocational skills certificate, and invite us to visit the school at any time. The other person's positivity makes my hesitation seem to be irresponsible to myself. After coming and going, my father finally made a decision to let me go to this school.
In mid-August, I boarded the train to Shaanxi, and although I was not as bold and hopeful as my peers who had been admitted to prestigious schools, I also had a small expectation: this was the first step in my long life, although it was not glamorous enough, but as long as I worked hard enough, I could step on it to ascend to a high place.
I didn't know at the time that this step was down.
matriculation
After leaving the train station, I reversed several buses and finally arrived at the school located on the outskirts of Xi'an. Next to it is a 985 university surrounded by buildings and trees. Later, Chaozi, who was in the same class, told me that when he first arrived, he mistook the university for our school and was overjoyed.
Chaozi's excitement was quickly extinguished by the truth: the school had only one teaching building, two dormitories, and the dormitory was an eight-room room, not the "bed and table" advertised by the admissions teacher, and 4 bunk beds were crowded. Washrooms and water rooms are communal, and the floor is covered with cigarette butts. Chaozi and I both felt that the school was not as grand as our respective middle schools, much less like a college.
The office where the admissions process was filled was packed with students and parents, and a teacher was clustered in the middle, repeatedly stressing: Pay first. I registered and paid a one-year tuition fee of 7800 yuan.
At the welcome meeting, the director of the School Security Department introduced the professional settings of the school, and highly recommended a major called "big data network marketing", saying that after the completion of the major, they all worked in an air-conditioned office, employment was guaranteed, and the salary was good. At his instigation, many people, including me, transferred to this major, and the procedure was very simple: find a teacher to register and change the original major.
Unexpectedly, before classes were officially held, there was a murder at the school, and a 16-year-old student who had just entered the school for less than a month was stabbed to death.
I was doing laundry in the water room when the managers in the hallway shouted: Everybody go back to the dormitory! Not allowed to come out! Later, our mobile phones were checked one by one to see if any relevant photos or videos were taken to prevent anyone from spreading on the Internet. Due to the prohibition of discussion, I do not know exactly what happened, but I learned from the local media reports that the deceased was stabbed in the heart by the classmates because of a verbal altercation with the dormitory classmates, and died.
The bloody episodes I had only seen in TV dramas actually happened around me, and on those days, I was so scared that I couldn't sleep all night and had the idea of dropping out of school. But the family said that they had paid so much tuition, or studied hard in school and got a college diploma. The college diploma promised by the teacher is the biggest motivation to support me and my family.
Classes have finally begun, but the level of teaching is another basin of cold water. The teachers are either older or look about the same age as us, and are said to be college students who are looking around, with great mobility and frequent changes. The common point is that the class only reads according to the textbook, and when someone asks a question, they prevaricate that the knowledge in the textbook is outdated, and we go to the computer room to actually operate.
There is no network in the school computer room, and the so-called practical operation is to practice Word, Excel and PPT on the computer. Then learn to type, in each lesson, the teacher asked us to repeatedly practice 5 keys to enter, and then change 5 keys in the next lesson. After becoming familiar with pinyin typing, practice five strokes of typing. Many of my classmates and I went to the teacher to reflect that what they learned was too simple, and the teacher either said that they followed the school's curriculum, or that the first two years were to learn the basics, and the third year was a professional class.
Gradually, more and more people skipped classes, and classrooms were often empty. The students who came to the classroom also slept, played with mobile phones, chatted, and sometimes even fought in class, and the teacher still ignored the lectern and read his book on the podium. I once bought a computer exam book to read in the dormitory, and was ridiculed by my classmates who played games day and night: Don't pretend.
The school implements paramilitary management, and at 8:30 every night, after the end of the evening self-study, it is unified to the playground for intensive training. The so-called playground is a dusty concrete floor. There was no class on Thursday afternoon, and the whole school gathered to listen to the school leaders' words and then train again, taking a little rest, walking in unison, and running. Some students protested, saying that they had come to school, not for military training, and the instructor kicked him.
Figure | must wear military training uniforms at the school
In the second year of enrollment, the school organized us to register for the adult college entrance examination. Chao Zi is a few years older than his classmates and has more experience, so he questioned: Didn't the school say that he would directly get a college diploma after graduation? Why take the adult college entrance examination? The students also echoed it. The teacher flashed his words, saying that this is a cooperative project between the school and a prestigious university, and you can get an extra college degree if you are admitted.
Many of the students around me are similar to me, growing up in small places, not understanding the higher and vocational education system, coupled with the inertia of closure and obedience brought about by militarized management, although everyone has doubts about the teacher's statement about adult college entrance examination and academic qualifications, but has not studied deeply. Only Chao Zi sneered: "Do you believe in the school?" Also package assignments? 985 and 211 universities are not included in the allocation.
Later, the "graduation assignment" convinced us of Chaozi's foresight. But at the time, perhaps because the sunk cost was already too great for us, no one wanted to doubt the bright promise of the school.
After learning typing for two years, under everyone's protest, the school finally connected to the network of the computer room and arranged a "professional class" on how to register and open a store on an e-commerce platform. Within a few lessons, the top-level internship began.
Internship and graduation
In the first half of my second semester, I went through an internship.
Due to the continuous enrollment without thresholds, the school's teaching building was not enough, so a row of tin houses was built on the open space to allow some students to attend classes. It was still not enough, and my class was arranged to go out for an internship and free up the classroom. At that time, it was the end of the year, which was the peak of sales of major e-commerce platforms, and we were assigned to an e-commerce warehouse in Shaoxing, responsible for packaging, shipping, inventory, and a monthly salary of more than 3,000 yuan.
I was assigned to work the night shift from 8 a.m. to 8 a.m. the next morning. The amount of goods that needs to be packed is too large, and in addition to the one-hour meal and rest in the middle, it has been working non-stop with hands and feet. I was sleepy at night, my limbs were numb and my spirits were confused, and I thought, if you can give me 5 minutes, I will definitely be able to sleep standing up.
Students in other majors experienced similar experiences. Rail operations majors were asked to go to electronics factories for internships and tighten screws on assembly lines. Some students raised objections, feeling that the content of the internship had nothing to do with the major, and the work was too heavy, and the school threatened to issue a graduation certificate if they did not participate in the internship.
Unlike previous internships, top-level internships are required to fully perform job responsibilities and become regular employees if they are qualified. In other words, the top internship position is the work assigned to us by the school.
Contrary to the school's long-boasted "sitting in an air-conditioned office and living in a double room", we were assigned to an e-commerce warehouse on the outskirts of Shanghai to take pictures of goods. The production tool is a mobile phone, which needs to be rented from the manufacturer at a price of 100 yuan per month, and if there is damage, it also needs to be compensated.
The warehouse is cramped, and the bright and dangling light bulbs hang overhead, so that every thought of stealing the air to rest is hidden. Drinking water and going to the toilet must be reported, and the amount of tasks is refined to every hour, and the penalty is not achieved. Wages are also measured on an hourly basis, at $15 an hour. The dormitory is an 8-person room, and the ground is densely crawled with cockroaches.
After a week of drying, I fled. Although the last internship was arduous, I could convince myself to be patient with the thought of short-term work, but this time, I couldn't imagine staying in such a working environment for a long time.
I later learned that my internship experience was not the worst. The following year, high-speed rail crew students were sent to Beijing for internships, living in dormitories in garbage heaps with no door locks and no doors in the bathroom. Angry parents went to the school gates to pull up banners in protest.
The school was long gone, I didn't go back, and I spent the next six months doing odd jobs. Near graduation, my classmates and I asked in the WeChat group when to issue the diploma, but the school repeatedly delayed. It wasn't until September 2020 that I received my diploma of three years of patience.
With the diploma in my hand, I quickly realized that something was wrong. There is a line of small print at the stamp in the lower right corner of the certificate: "According to the provisions of Shaanxi Banfa [2007] No. 13 document, the graduate's academic qualifications are treated the same as those of university specialists."
The picture | the graduation certificate issued by the school
I searched the Internet for this document, but I couldn't find it, but I saw that there were students from another local college who were also inquiring. In order to confirm the contents of Document No. 13 [2007] issued by the Shaanxi Banfa, the student said that he had consulted the Department of Human Resources and Social Security, the provincial government and the provincial archives, and replied that there was no such document. He said he also asked teachers in several departments of his school, who were also "vague." ”
Seeing this ridiculous statement, and in connection with the various situations in the past three years, I finally determined that "graduating with a college diploma" was a scam of the school, and the line on the graduation certificate was just the school's self-deception and had no effect.
Later, when my desire for a slightly more formal job was rejected, and when my parents regretted that they had delayed me for three years, I had the idea of asking the school for advice. But at the time, I just wanted to get out of this chaotic and suffocating place like a concentration camp quickly, and most of my classmates' thoughts were close to mine. After getting that useless diploma, we went our separate ways without tangling with the school. On the graduation certificate, my major inexplicably became "computer application and maintenance", three years of youth, starting with lies and ending with lies.
The students who signed up for the adult college entrance examination that year will not be able to get a college diploma until 2021, and I lack confidence when I did not participate. In the midst of my job search, I tried to use the school diploma as proof of academic qualifications. Once applied for the telephone customer service of a large factory, I said that I was a college graduate, and the other staff opened the learning information network on the spot, asking me to enter the graduation certificate number query, and the result was naturally not queried. The other party said that they only accept academic certificates that can be found on the xuexin website. His words are very euphemistic, but they make me feel groundless.
I signed up for the self-exam while looking for jobs that didn't require a degree. In the past year, the hardships of part-time work and the lack of prospects have made me hate the deception of the school more and more. In July 2021, I complained to the local social security department and the mayor's hotline about the school.
A year after graduation, I met the school staff again in the office of the local social security department. Previously, from the mouth of the staff of the human resources and social security department, I had a general understanding of the history of the school: it had been successively managed by the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, the human resources and social security department, and the management committee, and was not in the sequence of higher education, and did not have the qualification to issue a college degree.
Under the coordination of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the school sent two staff members to talk with me and one of the students who participated in the complaint. I mentioned the school's false propaganda about the issuance of diplomas, and the other party put the responsibility on the admissions teacher, saying that the admissions teacher said it on his own initiative. I took a screenshot of the "national recognition of college degrees" propaganda on the school's website in 2017, and she looked around at him, saying that the matter of academic qualifications has passed, and we should focus on solving current problems, such as the possibility of reassigning jobs to us. But for me, there is no longer any sense of compensation for jobs as cheap labor as before.
The meeting on the same day was not happy, and the human resources and social security department asked the school to give us a follow-up reply. After returning to my hometown, I received several calls from the school authorities asking me to go to the school to "discuss". I asked what to discuss, and the school never answered positively, only urging me to come to school.
Worried about the trap, I did not go to school, but pretended to be the parents of the candidates for this year's college entrance examination, and consulted the admissions office director who called my home that year. In WeChat, the other party vowed to issue a college diploma after three years of school.
*Characters in this article are pseudonyms
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Written by | Rowland
Edit | Lei Lei