I just had the same experience in my math class. The professor ran us through what to expect on the final and then, guess what, the stuff he told us to cover was about half of what was on the final. He hyped up a couple things and then didn’t even have them on the final.
PISSED ME OFF.
Hopefully I passed…
Slee
Wow. That’s not a fun thing to get slapped with. Definitely let us know what the prof and the school’s stance is on the grading.
I had a bit of a glitch when it came time for me to apply for graduation at UC-Davis. I submitted the application and checked its status after the required time. Here’s the fun conversation:
That, of course, led to Part II (since the OP is talking about Latin, I figured I might as well use Roman numerals–spelling words with a v instead of a u is out though):
Ah, the joys of student life.
For the OP’s situation, I’m wondering if the prof’s and the administration’s hands are tied. The comprehensive exam is supposed to test the student’s knowledge of what the course is supposed to cover. If the student didn’t demonstrate that knowledge, can they give you credit for it? Perhaps the best they can do is to permit you to take the test again at no charge. I wish I had some better suggestions that would look great to the school, but I don’t, alas.
Again, let us know what the response from them is.
And, regardless of how this turns out, congrats on your impending graduation.
It’s all good training for the world of work where similar things will happen on an hourly basis. Best of luck Hugh, and enjoy your graduation.
I remember the “typed form” requirements at Davis, too. I just typed what I needed to say on my computer, printed that out, and stapled it to the form. Then I wrote “Please see attached” in very neat handwriting on the form itself.
My suggestion is to email him saying pacta sunt servanda.
ahahahahahaha. Best of luck to you though.
It strikes me that the university should have in place a system that determines, well before your final couple of months, whether you’re going to have enough credits to graduate.
When i was an undergrad, back in Australia, i worked a couple of summers in the enrollment office of the Arts and Social Sciences school at my university. Our job was to go over each student’s enrollment for the upcoming year, and to make sure each person was fulfilling his or her requirements both for the major/s, and for graduation. We paid particular attention to students entering their senior year, and if it looked like anyone was going to fall short of the required credits, or the required sequence of credits, we would call them in to talk about what they needed in order to graduate. and help them fix their course selection accordingly. That way, no-one got a nasty surprise when graduation was just around the corner.
I might add, also, that when problems did occur, it was often because students refused to read the handbook and follow instructions about requirements for the major and for graduation. We would call them in and tell them that they needed to do Subject X in order to get a major in Psychology, and they would protest that they shouldn’t have to do Subject X because they had taken Subject Y instead. Then, when we pointed out that the handbook specifically stated that Subject Y could not be substituted for Subject X, they would complain that they never knew about that.
Anyway, as far as the OP is concerned, hopefully once his professor realizes the discrepancy, the problem will be fixed and he can graduate.
When I read the mouseover, I thought, “Oh hell, another whiny college slacker bitching about having to study hard to learn something.” And then I read the whole OP. It sounds like you did everything asked of you. I feel bad now.
Yeah, I was ready to defend My Profession to the death, but if all goes as it should, **Hugh ** did the right thing, and the teacher’ll do the right thing, so eh. Hell, shit happens; as long as the other guy cleans it up, I’m fine.
When I was getting my Masters, a year before I was due to complete it my advisor and I were looking over my Program of Study, and she realized I was missing a required class. She shrugged and said, “I must have forgot to put it in there,” and signed off on it.
I loved that woman.
For those of you needing typewriters in the future, your friendly neighborhood public library will usually have one tucked away in a corner somewhere for predicaments like this. 
And, I too am pleasantly surprised by the reasonableness of the pitting. Best of luck.
In retrospect, I feel sorry about what I posted, Hugh Mongoose. I made some assumptions springing from personal experience, and I may not have interpreted the original post accurately.
Congratulations on your upcoming graduation, and best wishes for a satisfying solution to your Latin credits problem.
I’ve never heard of taking an exam in lieu of the class. Is this a new thing? Seems kind of weird to me, like an unbelievable shortcut to a college degree. I’m curious about the mechanics. Is any class fair game? And is it cheaper than attending the class?
Not new at all. We had such courses at the University of Texas in the early 90s, and it was certainly established by then.
Most of them were for electives or intro courses, like Psych 301, which a lot of us took to get our area requirements out of the way. It’s not available for every course. Typically ones where the prof has to teach to the lowest common denominator, because a huge number of the class aren’t in the major. So if you know the topic fairly well and want to knock it out, there it is. If you’re short-sighted and think that you can handle not going to class and reading on your own, there it is (my story). If you’re organized and mature and can handle the independent nature of the course, there it is.
What the OP is describing sounds actually more like an independent study course, where a prof cooks up a syllabus (sometimes in conjunction with a student, sometimes not) and the student submits work by the end of the semester. They don’t meet in class. It’s a way to accommodate upper-division students with courses they need, but without the need for having a class with two students.
If it’s like the latter, I doubt this miscommunication will present much of a problem.
The course cost the same as a three-hour course, though you had to pay a lab fee (probably to pay TAs to proctor tests). It cost less in the respect that you could do something else during that time, like go to a job, or watch Oprah.
Most schools have a cap on the number of CBE or independent studies one can take. For every kid actually taking a course for intellectual challenge, there are two taking it so they can blow off the lecture. So there are disincentives. Also, in my experience, they are rarely offered for the “meat” courses - the mid-level major courses.
There are a lot of ways to get class credit without taking the class. CLEP tests (“testing out” of intro math or English courses) and AP tests, for instance.
AFAIK, most American universities have do a “degree check” or “petition for degree” form that you’re supposed to file early in your final term*. The whole purpose of the form is to have someone audit that you are meeting all the requirements of your department and the university for the major you’re in. Of course, if you fail a final or something, that won’t help you.
I decided to blow off my summer courses for the master’s program I’m in now, so that means I’ll have to take them next summer, after my class graduates. But intend to walk the robed walk next May anyway.
*Or perhaps it’s during the penultimate term–if it is the final term, that doesn’t give the student much time to address any deficiencies.
The first example Hippy Hollow provided describes exactly what this is. The CBE tests were originally set up as placement exams, to allow students more advanced in the study of a language to avoid taking the elementary classes. If you pass these placement tests, however, you also receive credit for taking the class. It is a bit of a shortcut, but it meant that I could take classes that were more interesting to me and more pertinent to my field along the way.
This is the second CBE I’ve taken for latin. The first was to test out of Elementary Latin I, this one was for Elementary Latin II. I studied Latin for about 6 years before finishing high school, and my senior year translated the first two books of the Aeneid; for a degree in Visual Communication Design, it’s required that a student take two classes in Math, Logic or Foreign Language.
By the time I started college I had been doing pure translation long enough that reproduction of forms was something on which I was rusty, so I knew I would have to do a decent amount of studying regardless of what point in my college career I took the CBE. I knew this was necessary before I even started college, as my older brother had also CBEd the same two courses.
At the beginning of this semester I’d signed up to take the two CBEs; the professor told me that any time during his office hours or when any of his classes were taking an exam I was welcome to take the first CBE, and if I passed that I could take the second. He informed me of the required chapters two months ago, so I had been planning based on that information. With everything else I had to finish in order to graduate, there was no time for the heavy-duty studying necessary to pass the second test until late last week. I took a day and a half off of work to study.
I received a call midway through this semester notifying me that I still had to complete the Math, Logic or Foreign Language requirement, along with a few In Progresses they wanted to be sure I was going to complete. I told them about the CBEs, and they said that in that case everything was peachy.
I still haven’t heard back from him…
Now that you mention it, I’m trying to remember whether or not I had to fill out something like that when I graduated University of Michigan, and I don’t think I did. I have a vague impression that the whole graduation process seemed very loose and hand-wavy, but I did end up with a diploma to show for it, so somehow or other it must have worked out.
On the other hand, I also got a letter a few months later asking me why I had chosen not to continue my college studies! This probably had to do with my getting the degree in 3 years, but some kind of audit process would have potentially addressed that question.
On the flip side, when I was in med school, we were informed that there were no specific rotation requirements for our fourth year, although pretty much everyone did a subinternship of some sort. I, of course, having had my fill of clinical medicine, decided that I would do nothing of the sort, since it wasn’t required. Fast forward to the end of March, as everyone was entering FYBIGMI* territory, and I get a call from the Dean’s office:
Evil Dean: “We’ve looked at your rotation schedule for this year, and we see you haven’t done a subinternship.”
Me: “You told us it wasn’t required.”
Evil Dean: “It’s not, but we feel the breadth of your education would be lacking without one.”
Me: “It’s April! I’m going into pathology! I have more breadth than I need!”
Evil Dean: “We signed you up for a month in the Intensive Care Unit.”
Me: :eek:
Evil Dean: “They’re expecting you tomorrow at 4:30 am.”
Thus** did the University of Chicago ensure that they would never receive a cent in alumnus donations from me for the rest of my days.
*FYBIGMI = Fuck You Buddy, I Got My Internship. Applies to the last few months of med school after Match Day.
**This was not the only reason, of course.
So… he made no concessions when grading, and I missed passing by 3%.
FUCK!
At least he’s letting me take it again without paying, though his e-mail came across as pretty snarky and barely admitted any fault on his part, which pisses me off… Any one of the deponent forms, or a few of the vocab words that were introduced in those last three chapters, and I would have passed. At least that indicates that I had a pretty good idea of how well I knew the chapters I did study… Assuming even distribution of material among the chapters, I would have had an 84%, easily enough for a pass/fail test. Damn.
I’ll retake it later this week, and be done. Finally. At least I didn’t find out until after my graduation party…
I never had a college professor admit fault in anything, even when they were clearly in the wrong.
Don’t take it to heart.
Congrats on graduation.
As the Spectre said above, the university does have such a program. The problem is it’s divided among the schools and programs and thus provides more room for error. The biggest glitch, in my opinion, was the disconnect between recognition of something for admission to the major and recognition of that something as creditable for graduation. The school doesn’t teach that lingo and thus wanted–at the last minute, mind you–a bunch of paperwork from the staff at DLI. That would’ve taken too long and luckily I had a pretty cool teacher for the SacCity course who spent a good deal of his own time to write the verification paperwork.
I see the OP’s professor did do the right thing by not charging for the re-test. The “righter” thing, of course, would’ve been to give the correct information in the first place.
My English class syllabus said "All asignments are graded on a curve. When I got my first paper back, the grade was B++. WTF, there is no such grade.
“How many people got As?”, I asked. “None”, the TA said (out of 300 people in this big survey class). WTF, doesn’t a curve mean there will be an A? A least one?
I complained to the professor. Total wase of time. It turned out they wanted to provide an “incentive” for students to put more thought into the class. It was my incentive to drop it. At least I got an early warning; sucks that you got jerked around too late to do anything about it.