Law School Exams, Day 2: Thoughts on Day 1

Noel, Gilli, Tricia, Paige, and all my fellow Apple mates, you will find this particularly nauseating.

USC now (as of this school year) began requiring all law students to own a laptop. Unbeknownst to me (prior the semester) the requirement was that all law students own a PC laptop.

Let the discrimination/frustration/superiority complex begin.

First, there is a fairly cumbersome procedure one must go through every time one attempts to access the law school wireless. My PC user friends have all had trouble with it at some point this semester. I have not.

Mac 1 - Bill Gates 0.

The one time I DID have trouble (at the very beginning of the semester) I was turned away by the law school IT guy because they don't support Mac. I figured out the problem on my own.

Mac and Me 2 (since I discovered the solution) - Law School Techie who apparently has an old 486 shoved up his butt, 0.

Now the fun begins. The laptop requirement exists because of an evil program called Secure Exam. Secure Exam hates Macs. Actually, from my experience, it doesn't get along well with PC's either. Secure Exam was probably created by kids who don't play well with others.

Here's how it works:
1. Shut down all programs.
2. Access USC wireless.
3. Log in to Clean Access Agent - I have no idea what this does.
4. Log into VPN Client - extra protection hoop for wireless access.
5. Log into Secure Exam.
6. At this point, your entire computer is frozen except for Secure Exam - no accessing the internet, other files, etc. And if you're computer shuts down, it logs automatically back into Secure Exam, and you can't get out of it without a Proctor's password.

Again, this doesn't work with Apple computers.

So if you're a Mac user, you're SOL. A month ago I was informed that I would have to find a PC to borrow during exams. Difficulty #1, who can just loan a laptop out for 2 weeks? Difficulty #2, Secure Exam requires you to delete all antivirus protection (Norton, McAfee, etc.) and turn off a bunch of other stuff I don't understand (and neither to the IT guys). I find it no coincidence that USC announced this fall that they are hiring/creating a new Head of IT position for next year.

After deleting all of the protective software and updates etc. from my mom's computer and spending an entire Saturday in the library downloading and installing all the necessary programs, Secure Exam still did not work.

I gave up. Also, I swore a lot.

USC finally owned up to their ignorance, at least partially, and offered a loaner computer to Mac users during exams this fall. Since they claim this is a one time deal, I may still have to purchase a PC for next spring.

NOW...

Prior to yesterday's first exam, our class received an email stating that, inter alia, Secure Exam has found a glitch where if you attempt to use word count or spell check (both of which are important because our profs are sticklers about spelling and length of answers) there is a 15% chance the program will freeze and you will lose your work entirely. Brilliant.

Query: What Mac has EVER frozen from running a word count or spell check?
Answer: None. No not one.
Mac 3 - USC, Secure Exam, Bill Gates, and all PC's in general, 0. Minus 1 million for every brain cell you caused me to lose, and because I hate you. So now, -1 million.


Further, just minutes prior to taking the exam, our proctor instructed us that at least 5 or 10 of us would get an error message when attempting to upload our completed exam - alert her IMMEDIATELY or all is lost.

Thankfully, my loaner computer worked fine. Not everyone can say the same - some folks had trouble logging in before the exam started. Some folks had error messages regarding the completed exam. I think we all survived. But thanks to the PC world, our first exams in law school are even more stressful than they should be.

And to think I get to do it all over again on Friday...