If its 'Flame the Prof. day' then be prepared for 'Flame the student day' as well!

The BBQ Pit
#1

Thats it! I have been as fair as I can possibly be to my stats 202 intro class! I give them study guides, I practically outline how to ace my course and they still get pissed when I quizz them before a vacation. Finals are in three weeks, some students are in jeopardy of falling below the regulation 2.7 GPA for this semester, and if that puts them below their Cumulative for what they need to stay at this institution then they get put on academic probation. Oh stink’in well!
Hands fly up BIG SIGH!

I have had three students in my office today moaning about what they can do to ‘make the grade’ - i.e. is there any extra credit they can do etc…etc…

Yeah! You can write the 7-11 page paper on the topic stated in your syllabi. Short of that NO! You should have shown up more and understood the material.

*for those teachers out there who have similar problems, can you pick the students out by week 4 that will be in your office the week before Thanksgiving moaning about extra credit etc…etc…

I may be in a bit of a bad mood right now but SERIOUSLY PEOPLE!!! YOU ARE PAYING 35K A YEAR TO SMOKE POT! PLEASE JUST DO THE READING, AND SHOW UP FOR CLASS.

I have nothing against students partying, as I have said in the students and Marijuana threads of last year. But something is happening to me, I am losing the ‘give a shit’ node in my cerebrum because I’m sick of students trying to abuse the system, and do less work for the same A.
I’m having a bad day…I was in a small fender bender last week and the woman is now filing an injury claim…ERRRRR!!! I was going barely 2 miles an hour backing out of a parking space and I tagged her VERY LATE MODEL corrola. I can’t believe she’s filing injury claim. ERRR!!! Sorry for venting.

#2

I hate these fuckers. They piss off the profs, profs put in an attendance policy, and then I can’t skip class as much. And no, when I skip class, I don’t run to the professor’s office whining and begging.

#3

the quizzes before vacations aren’t bad, it’s the ones at 8am the first day back. Oh how i hate them…

scotcho

#4

You think you’re frustrated now, wait until you get my wife’s 11th graders in a few years. They’ll skip assignments all semester and then whine when she won’t give them extra credit opportunities later. They don’t understand why she instists on teaching a lesson on Thursday if Friday is a holiday! Why can’t we watch The Patriot in class, that’s about U.S. History!

Best quote from her US History class, from a girl in the middle of a test: “Mrs. Skammer, can’t you at least tell me who Marshall Plan is?”

#5

The little shits- HARum-hahem- pardon me, young scholars I teach this semester have this curious herd mentality: if everyone bitches and moans and does badly enough, then everyone will pass. I pity the student who actually want to learn the material.

You’ll be doing them a favor by giving them grades they deserve. If they fall below the required GPA, its not the end of the world. They can return to the University after a suitable period of reflection. After they work for a few years, they’ll learn their sorry bullshit whining doesn’t fly in what is affectionately know as “the real world.”

I remember when dear old Prof Pirkell at the UIUC was harangued by a pinhead who wanted him to change the date of a test. At the end of her monologue, Dr. Pirkell said, in the same flat tone he used for everything:

“Yes, with that attitude you’ll go far.”

And that ended that discussion.

#6

Yes they do piss off the profs and I must say, I tried not having an attendence policy in my classes. Go ahead show up for the mid-term and final and accept the grade. Then I had that abused and had to go back to my current philosophy. Skip a class, no big deal. Skip two, still no big deal. Skip a class I say is mandatory…we have a problem. Especially if you have already skipped 2 classes. Towards the end of the semester I find myself saying this more and more. Thursdays class is mandatory folks… try not to be late. It’s tough because I do teach my fair share of freshman who are in their sink or swim period. I try and give them just enough slack so they do not get too overwhelmed.
But I’m sorry, this semester I have mostly students I had last year, expecially in the intro stats 202 class. They know me and my policies, and still a few just seem to want to race to see who can get the highest before class. Worse part is the class is late in the day so they ahve all day to get their work done, and still some just plod in sit down and zone out. I try and call on them the most. :slight_smile:

#7

Dude.

I know I was only a lowly TA when I taught but the lesson should be straightforward.

Fail them.

They don’t want to do the work? The fuck 'em. That’s what I did.

My mom (who taught Econ at USC for a while) used to have this policy: one couldn’t fail her classes unless the student was an Econ major. She’d grade down the people who were taking her class to fill out their gen ed reqs but if an Econ MAJOR couldn’t do the work she considered it as sending a message that possibly another major was called for.

#8

Just out of curiosity, how can that be abused? If you know the material, you know the material.

It’s what I did for 40% of my classes (60% either had mandatory attendence or were genuinely interesting). There was no way in hell I could sit through 4 hours a week of someone droning on in a monotone about Laplace transforms and Fourier series–I’ll just read the damn book, thank you. Or listen to a CS professor cover stuff I’d known for years. The only time it ever backfired was when I showed up a half hour late for a one-hour midterm because I didn’t bother to look at the course web site to find out when it was until a 20 minutes after it started. Still ended up with an A-, though :smiley:

Mandatory attendence is cruel!

#9

:mad:

I’m just tired. Tired of bullshit. Tired of students who can’t seem to read a syllabus or an assignment sheet for comprehension. I’ve repeatedly told you that if you don’t follow instructions, then you will not do well. You are not the exception to the rule. Haven’t I indicated all semester long that y’all need to get it together? You’ve seen it reflected in your grades. I’ve verbally and orally warned you.

I’m just floored at the level of unprofessionalism I’ve seen from students. Some of you are just trifling, and I’m not going to put up with it. You walk in late as if it’s not rude at all to be that disrespectful and disruptive to your peers and to me. And then you get all flustered when you don’t know what’s going on because class started 20 minutes ago, and we didn’t wait for you to show up whenever you felt like it so that you could be assured of being on the same page with everyone else.

Some of you even are bold enough to try to argue with me that just because you walk into class 10 minutes late, I shouldn’t mark you late! :confused: Well, I’m sorry. If class fucking starts at 11 a.m., and you sashay in at 11:10 a.m., then guess what? YOU’RE LATE. Hell, I can’t count, but even I know that. I mean, we’re not talking complex math, where given a set of rules, X conditions that normally aren’t true, suddenly are. Telling time is a basic skill that you should have mastered already. If you haven’t, then you better hurry up and learn because you going to get left behind. And you sure as hell ain’t going to waste my time.

You don’t come to class, and then when you do show up, you complain that you don’t understand what’s going on. :rolleyes: Well, I guess not. You turn in shoddy work and have the nerve to think I’m going to give you a passing grade when I can tell you don’t even care enough to take even a little pride in your work, much less follow the instructions. Even your peers are wondering what the hell is wrong with you.

You know and the thing that gets me is how in the world do they think that if they don’t take the goals and procedures of my class seriously, that I’m going to take them seriously when they’re pleading with me to help them when they’re about to fail?

Hmphff. It’s time to grow up, people. If I’ve got to fail you in order to teach you a valuable lesson, then so be it.

Philosphr, I feel your pain, hon. I’m just at a loss as to what to do.

#10

I agree, I drop all the mandatory attendence classes I can. But by the same token, I hate the little bastards who go whining to the professor when they don’t show up for class all semester, then wind up failing. I have some people in one of my Psych. classes who are worse, though. We have a term paper. It’s 30% of the grade. The semester is winding down and we’re supposed to have had a topic approved and a rough draft in and basically be cleaning up. Some people haven’t even got a topic approved! And I know in the bowels of my black heart that they’re going to be whining in her office on the day before the final.

Phlosphr-I’m guessing you’re teaching a Psychological Statistics kinda thing and not the math one, right? I can’t believe people are screwing around in that class. At the two schools I’ve attended, Stats is not just a Major requirement, it’s probably the hardest class the Psych majors have to take. I took Methods (it was seperate from Stats) at my old school and it was very, very difficult. I can’t imagine trying to negotiate that class high!

Celestina-The late people run me, the student, nuts. How about people who run 20-30 minutes late for the midterm?! Either show up on time or–assuming no attendence policy is in place–don’t show up at all. People moseying in 30 minutes late, then asking questions we’ve already covered, piss me off. Especially people who do it every day.

#11

From the perspective of the student (graduated in '95). I never expected special treatment from my lecturers. If I didn’t show up… guess what, I lived with the outcome. Or begged someone for their notes… which we all know are never as good. Unless you’re talking about HR lecturers, I went out a bought a dictaphone for those ones!

Anyway, I was one of those students that turned up, tried my best, handed in work, attempted to actually learn the stuff not just memorise it, and enjoyed every moment of my 5 Uni years. I was one of those smiling faces that actually tried to interact with the lecturers (except for previously mentioned HR classes). And I was always unimpressed with some who would winge and moan to me that Mr. So-and-so was a bastard for not letting them pass, when they never turned up, tried to hand in work a week late, and when they didn’t like the grade they got, wanted a re-mark.

I paid for Uni with my own money and I was not going to waste it.
I still partied, missed the occassional class, and found myself up til 3 am finishing something that I should have started weeks before, but hell I never moaned about it, I knew the expectations and Blamed no-one but myself if I didn’t succeed.

Sorryphlospr , I wish you had more students like me. (Yeh I know how conceited that sounded, I wasn’t perfect, but at least I respected the system and those who were trying to help me)

#12

Yup. And indignant that you won’t change the syllabus because they had reasons for their many absences/missed assignments/poor tests.

#13

The young scholars I teach this semester have a curious herd mentality: they think if everyone bitches and moans and does badly enough, then everyone will pass. Not so. You’ll do them a favor by giving them grades they deserve. If they fall below the required GPA, it’s not the end of the world. They can return to the University after a suitable period of reflection. After they work for a few years, they’ll learn their sorry whining doesn’t fly on the job.

I remember when dear Prof Pirkell at the UIUC was harangued by a pinhead who wanted him to change the date of a test. At the end of her monologue, all Dr. Pirkell said was: “Well, with that attitude you’ll go far.” End of discussion.

#14

I’m convinced these kids think College is no different than high school.

I had the best English class ever. Technical Writing. Professor very clearly spelled out exactly what he wanted for each assignment. He graded you based on how likely someone in the real world was to pick up on your error. So if the assignment was a business letter then spelling the customer’s name wrong lost you more points than spelling some obscure term wrong.

Anyway we had an assignment to make an org chart that was to be balanced well on the page and everything was to be done in black and the headers were to be boxed in and all the lines done with a ruler if you didn’t have a computer. I saw the papers pile up at the beginning of class and I saw blue lines and red lines and circles. I also saw the flabbergasted looks of students when they got their papers returned with not so flattering grades.

I also had to do a group project for a communications class. One member of our group was a graduating senior whose class motto was D is for diploma. All he needed was a D in the class to graduate in the spring and he did not care whose GPA he ruined in the process. After all of us in the group couldn’t get through to him we had a nice chat with the professor. I don’t think he got his D or his Diploma.

They just didn’t get it. I fear for these kids when they go to get jobs.

#15

Wow, I wish there were more profs like those who posted here. As a student who consistently performs well, I get tired of arbitrary standards. The syllabus says one thing so I follow it–that’s what it’s for, right? Then I see all kinds of students who are underprepared or just outright didn’t give a damn getting all sorts of later deadlines and special consideration. Why the hell did I work so hard? College students are too often mollycoddled, and something should be done about it, though I don’t know what. In the meantime, thank you to the profs here, and those like my logic professor. He laid it out day one: 10 home work assignments and two tests, zero extra credit. He will laugh at you if you ask, as well he should. This isn’t high school.

#16

Phlosphr, how much latitude do you, or profs in general, have in enforcing your own policies? I don’t know if it was just the campus version of an urban legend, but I remember hearing at my uni. that some colleges required a certain percentage of the class be given A’s, another percentage B’s, another C’s, etc.

Is that plausible? (I went to a large public university.)

As a side note, I always preferred the “hard profs”. I always got more out of the class, and the grade I got meant more. I swear the no BS profs were better in almost all respects. Thank you for being a hardass! I bet more students appreciate it than you realize.

#17

I hated the ones who whined, too, but I took serious issues with the attendance policies. I had a music history class my junior year of college that was a complete waste of time. Basically, we were expected to regurgitate the book come test time. We had marathon study sessions before the tests because we HAD to memorize the fucking book - that’s what a test in that class was like. Spending an hour in that class three times a week was a waste of my time - because all he did was drone on and read out of the book. I can do that by myself and I can do it a hell of a lot faster. However, because I valued my GPA, I showed up to class. I also scored a high A in both semesters of the class by studying my ass off.

Same for a history class I was in - I scored high As in that class on every single test and my professor tried to convince me to change my major to history (which I did want to do, but was unable to lose my music scholarship). But I went to class because he discussed the material with us. We had active banters in class and I looked forward to the class. I still had to study just as hard to get my As on my tests as I did in music history, but at least I didn’t resent the time I spent in class. He didn’t have an attendance policy, but I went to the majority of my classes.

I’m not saying that you do what my music history professor did, but the students are adults - if they don’t want to show up to class, that’s their own fault - let them fail. If there are students who consistently do the reading, do the studying, and learn what needs to be learned, but don’t show up to class, why should they be penalized? More than likely, the good students are the ones who will show up to class anyway, and the bad ones will fail whether there’s an attendance policy or not.

I found that I probably could have skipped 3/4 of my college courses and still pull the exact same GPA (3.6). I could have used the extra time to study or practice - especially in the life of a harried and busy music student. But because of the attendance policies, I was forced to sit in classes that really were nothing more than an outline of the material I’d learn on my own later anyway.

Ava

#18

At least in my school, the courses in the college of engineering were–by policy–curved to some degree. In the upper division courses that only people majoring in the topic would take, this was done more rigorously (e.g., “I’m going to curb the class such that the mean grade is a B-”).

I’d think most of the professors teaching technical courses would have laughed if an individual student asked for an extension.

And for the record: I may have skipped many, many classes, but I never requested an extension or extra credit from anyone. And the anecdote about being late for the midterm was the only time that happened (I learned my lesson!)

#19

I’ve had a ton like this. I’m in an English class like this now, in fact. We do nothing in class. All we’re graded on is papers. And yet she has a stupid attendence policy. So she feels needed or some shit. All class is is her talking to one student, who answers every question she asks. I’d be happy to turn in all my papers, take the grade and be done with it, but noooooo.

I don’t think he’s complaining about the students that skip all the time. He’s complaining about the ones that skip all the time and then come to him wanting extra credit/more time/whatever.

#20

I haaaaaate professors who make their students do group work. Hate it hate it hate it. I don’t like having to depend on other people to make a good grade.

Anyhow, OP, I’d be your dream student (well, aside from the whole sucking at math thing) except I am consistently late to my history class. DH has a class the same time as that one, and he is always late for everything, thus making me late most of the time by about 5 minutes.
I’m sorry hangs head