A few weeks ago, I walked into the Pollock Testing Center ready to scan my Penn State ID and take an exam for my mass media law course.

This exam was pretty high stakes, considering that if you failed, you would fail the class and inevitably drop the course late, forcing you to take it again the following semester because it’s a graduation requirement. I spent my entire day preparing for this assessment and blew through multiple practice exams in preparation.

I was scheduled for a 6:30 p.m. time slot on a rainy Thursday evening. I walked into the testing center a few minutes before I was set to take my exam. I was even dressed in full-on business professional attire because I was supposed to be headed to the Penn State Sports Business Conference networking session after I finished my exam.

When I walked into the main lobby, I was stopped by a friend and talked to him for less than two minutes as I got in line.

Well, I walked through the turnstile, scanned in, and was welcomed by a staff member. As he was about to hand me my testing center slip, he was interrupted by a different employee. She instructed me to step out of line and to scan a QR code that would allow me to sign up for a different time slot, all because I was a minute late.

If I’m being honest, I thought she was joking because this has never happened to me throughout my time on campus — that’s how absurd this was.

Since this exam was pretty high-stakes, all of the time slots were filled by my classmates. I pleaded with the testing center employee and explained how this would affect my grade. She told me that I was to email my professor and that the system would not allow me to enter.

After frantically sending emails to my TAs and my professor, I left the testing center. I even booked it to my professor’s office and left her multiple voicemails explaining the situation. I called all of my friends just to vent my frustrations. I didn’t even get to go to the networking event — I was too busy trying to decipher if I was going to have to drop a class because one employee decided to boot me out the door for being a minute late.

Say I did fail this test because my professor didn’t allow me to take a makeup exam. I would have had to pay more money in tuition to cover the course, as well as have an “LD” on my transcript, all because one person decided that arriving just even a minute late was completely inexcusable.

I understand that the Pollock Testing Center is short-staffed these days, but I don’t think it warrants treating students in such a distasteful manner. Many students walk into that building and are already on edge because of how testing can be. The last thing anyone wants in that situation is to be turned away after trekking across campus.

I don’t understand how the testing center’s system allows students to be 30 minutes early, but leaves no margin for error. If you arrive just one minute late, you’ll be turned away. It has nothing to do with how many seats are available within the testing center.

Not having a grace period for college students is a bit intense if you ask me. Sure, I could have read the fine print in the scheduling email, or I could have just been let in, even though I was technically late.

There has to be a better way to run this place. If you can’t tell, I’m still upset over this situation.