I’m sitting here staring at my report card in utter shock. I’ll be the first person to admit im not a good student, never have been and likely never will be. This semester i took it to another level though, i just couldn’t make myself put any work in no matter how hard i tried. I only took four classes: college algebra, english 1, intro to astronomy, and intro to geology.
First off, math: your whole grade was based of 5 tests (80%) and attendance, homework, and a writing project (wtf?). Showed up to class 5 times, aced four of the tests and got a D on the last, did no homework at all and didn’t even find out what the project was on. I should have finished with a C, not great but good enough for a smart slacker like me. Wrong, somehow it says i got a B, which is technically mathematically impossible. I guess i missed the class where they explained percentages.
It gets even better. Geology, whole grade is based on three tests. My grades where 78, 54, and 49. Those where the only three times i showed up. I got a C in the class. Its worth mentioning the first day of class there weren’t enough sits for all the people that signed up, or enough books for everyone. By the first test the class was down to half of what it started, the second there was maybe 20 people there out of 80+ the first day and the last test it was me my brother and three other dudes with tons of notes. Maybe all the drop outs where averaged in the curve? i don’t know but im not going to complain.
Same thing with astronomy. Failed two out of four tests, got a C in the class. I actually did do all the research papers for my english class and expected to get a C for my efforts, but somehow i have a B.
I used to hear all the time that all you needed to pass a class was to show up for all the lessons and you would be ok, when did it change to just don’t drop the class and you’ll be ok? Don’t get me wrong, i’m stoked beyond belief right now and me and my bro are going out to celebrate tomorrow. It just seems, i don’t know…cheap?
I turned in the worst piece of work I’ve produced at any level to my Politics in Literature professors last semester. (It was a critique of the nonautoritarian communist ideology described in The Dispossed by Ursula Le Guin, btw.)
Anyway, a week later I got my twenty-four pages of carefully typed BS back- with a large A printed on the front and a note from the chair of the political theory department, who the professors had apparently passed it along to.
Maybe you’re just smart, modest, and not a good judge of your own work. I’ve turned in papers that I churned out after staying awake for 24 hours that’ve been praised as “some of the best undergraduate work I’ve seen.”
Sounds like the OP’s college must be a joke, though. Although at my school various professors nudged grades to varying degrees, if you were failing you would in fact fail.
Judging from your list of classes I assume you’re pretty fresh and haven’t picked a major; I personally dropped astrology and geology and had English 101 waived by test scores, so I’m not really in any position to admonish you. But… it might be worth actually trying when you start focusing on something. College isn’t all about the degree on paper, you know. Anyway, once you start taking some real classes instead of Mickey Mouse GE stuff you will probably not have so much slack to play with.
I took an accounting class last fall semester. After a few classes, I realized that I could do just fine in the class if I didn’t show up (except for tests obviously). Pulled a B. No idea how I did it, since the professor said he graded on attendance as well. Maybe if I’d shown up to every class I would have gotten an A. Oh well, a B is good enough for me.
My university is by no means “hard” but if you show up only 5 times to a class, chances are you’re gonna flunk. Most professors have a “cutoff” for absences and once you hit it it doesn’t matter how good your coursework is, you still won’t pass.
I took a Psychology of Personal Adjustment class once and skipped class at LEAST once a week. I don’t think I ever went to class on Friday. And once, for a three week span, I never once went to class. When the Final rolled around, I went in drunk beyond all belief, cause we’d just had an impromptu party beforehand. The test was blurring in front of me.
I got an A.
You got some easy classes OR generous professors. Enjoy it while you can, cause you’ll probably get a ballbreaker soon.
My lower-division classes were generally a matter of showing up occasionally, writing a couple of papers, and taking an easy, no-study test or two.
My upper-divsion classes were insane. We were expected to write publishable work. Our readings were long and dense. Theres some stuff in our readings that many grad students in the subject never really figure out. Additionally, we had to do huge projects that take hundreds of hours to complete. I skipped a lot of class, but I also worked my ass off.
Somewhere in there I discovered that a lot of college is what you put in to it. Presumeably you are spending thousands of dollars to learn, not just to get a piece of paper. It’s worth every moment to challenge yourself. For example, I’d seek out paper topics that I know have never been written about instead of chooseing ones that I know I’d have a lot of sources to look at. I’d read beyond the assigned texts.
Because I didn’t get grades at my school, I never got the impression that an “A” is enough. Instead, I was constantly challenged to do my best work and blaze new ground. I could have done okay just skating by, but I would have wasted a lot of time and money.
I concurr. Now I understand why they used to sell those “Anywhere else and it would have been an A!” t-shirts at my college. There was none of this “only showing up for exams” business tolerated. People who did things like that did not last long.
Oh, theendisnear, your math grade was probably curved.
He’s not at an easy school–he took the four easiest classes in the history of the world.
Just wait until you get some upper-division courses, then decide if your Uni is still a joke.
Even at a purportedly good school, some instructors can be a joke. I took an engineering physics course when I went to UC Berkeley (it was second semester, dealing with electricity and magnetism and such). The instructor was completely incoherent, and spent the lecture periods discussing his own work. When the first test came around, it was graded on a curve. Because of his teaching skills (and the resulting performance by the class on the test), the cutoff for a D grade on that test was 2 points. Out of 100. Yes, a mere 2% got you a passing grade. Just write F = ma somewhere on the paper and you can get 2 points!
I think I got a total of 100 points for all the tests put together in that class, and gave up on homework quite early on (the fact that I hadn’t had vector calculus by that time didn’t help me any). I got a C in the class.
I’m a pretty damn good student, but even I’m mystified as to how I made a B+ in my Biology class my first semester. I always showed up, did my best, but it just wasn’t my best subject. I was praying at the end for a C, and you can imagine my amazement when I got a big fat handsome B+ on my final grade for Biology.
Maybe it was all those tight clothes I wore or something, I dunno, I still don’t know how I managed that grade.
I beg to differ… I was working 40 hours a week my second year, so bowling, goly, and “country and western line dancing”-yes, its a southern school were easy ways out
I agree with pepperlandgirl, sorry but you took easy freshman classes. And since those included math and science, they were probably curved. You may have missed the day were the professor explained curve system and how he/she expects someone who pulls 60% an above average student. Yes, there are some classes in which merely getting half the exam right is an accomplishment.
My first year, I took classes in which I never showed up, or seldom did, and still got an A or a B+, except for a C in one case. When I started my concentration and higher science classes, all that changed. I have not skipped a class intentionally (only if I’m too sick or I have work to do for another class) in almost a year, and I know that if I do, I’ll miss important notes that are the base for every exam or that the professor in my concentration classes always take attendance.
Oh, and another thing, there are professor that give the final grade based on how you did on your semester overall. If you started flunking, but made your way up to a C, the prof may give you a B instead of a C because you showed actual learning.
I don’t know what you plan to go into eventually, but it sounds like you’ve got a good head for math but aren’t applying yourself. I’d give it a little more effort if I were you because that way you keep your options open. Math is the great roadblock to many who had childhood dreams of becoming scientists or engineers.
At a hard school, he wouldn’t be able to pull decent grades in even the easiest classes by just showing up three times a semester for exams. So if his school isn’t truly easy, I doubt it’s particularly challenging. It may be about average for big state schools, though. My mom used to teach Intro Psych at a big state university and she said about 1/3 of the class never showed up for anything but exams. Oddly, partway into the semester many of this 1/3 would want to meet with her to discuss why they weren’t pulling As…
College is not a big joke, and if it is, well, it ain’t funny.
As someone has already said, you get out of it what you put into it. Take advantage of it while you can and learn, because someday you aren’t going to be able to pick and choose from such a wide range of interesting subjects about the world to focus your energy on.
Incidentally, I wouldn’t necessarily conclude that you go to an easy school. I got my first degree in psych from U of MD in College Park. (granted not exactly ivy league, but by no means an easy school). My first 2 years I never went to a single class except the first day (to get the syllabus), exam days, and days when papers were due. I got almost straight A’s (though I worked very hard to learn the stuff on my own). I’m sure you’ll find as you progress that, noit only will upper classes become more challenging and require more from you, but C’s will become less desireable. Also, as the subject matter becomes more interesting, you actually begin to enjoy going to class. (No, really!)
