How come there aren’t any positive archetypes?
The Earnest Student: This guy might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, and even if he doesn’t make the highest grade in the class or sometimes struggles with the material, he’s there every day and makes a concerted effort to do a good job.
Marc
Because the Earnest Student then becomes the Earnest Worker, which needs to be watched by others because he doesn’t know shit.
There are positive archetypes, like the Note Taker, who always takes good notes and is willing to share them; the Organizer, who arranges for group meetings and places to meet, and who keeps every e-mail related to the project; and the Tutor, who is more than happy to help any classmate who needs it. It’s just the negative archetypes who get noticed and remembered because they’re a pain in the ass to the people around them.
Robin
Okay, here’s a positive one:
Sharp As A Tack
There is exactly one of these in every classroom. Unlike the rest of the herd, this student gets it. He or she understands the lecture and the reading and is able to relate it to other things he or she has learned. This student has interesting life experience and even knows a little bit about other countries (quite often, this student is from another country). This student is the one who answers questions; the teacher leans on this student like a crutch in order to maintain some semblance of classroom interaction. This student desperately wants to talk to the teacher one-on-one but is too well-behaved to do it either during class or out of it–or to take up too much time in office hours, if other students are there too. It is entirely possible that this student doesn’t realize how much he or she stands out, and won’t realize it… until he or she teaches a class, and encounters Sharp As A Tack in another incarnation.
I didn’t say he was barely passing I just said he doesn’t always make the highest grade and sometimes he has to struggle with the material. How does this translate into not knowing shit?
Marc
Here is a positive one common at my non-traditional school:
Immigrant Making A Better Life OK, some of these people are clearly in over their heads, but most of the immigrants I’ve had the pleasure to go to school with are working hard. They may only get a B or a C in the course, but considering they are doing in in a language they’ve picked up in the last decade, its pretty incredible. At my school, the majority of these students are from sub-Sahara Africa. They don’t make excuses, and seem to look with some amusement as Ms. “I’m returning to school after failing out five years ago - and I still haven’t figured out that I should be drunk while I study.”
You almost never hear excuses from these people. The book may be so expensive that they are reading it in the library or sharing a copy between themselves - but they never mention it to the professor. They may have missed most of the last lecture because the prof was caught up in his own world of big words that even the native English speakers weren’t keeping up with - but they never ask for a definition - they write it down and then ask someone during break or after class.
Amen. I LOVE these students. It’s the native ones that are showing up mainly in the negative archetypes. And on that note: Manatee is not lying about the I-got-A’s-in-high-school-so-I-deserve-A’s-in-College-Too students.
"Is This Going to be on the Exam?"
This kid won’t let two PowerPoint slides go by without asking this question, or it’s companion, “Should I write that down?” The professor repeats each main point of her lecture multiple times and frequently backtracks in her slideshow so that this one student can take meticulous notes at his/her own pace. The prof is so glad to see someone showing active interest and initiative that she won’t push on, and the rest of the class falls asleep until the last five minutes of lecture, when the prof rushes madly to teach the last third of the material. When the exams are handed out mid-semester, this student whines, kicks, screams, and cries over every question that wasn’t gone over in excruciating detail in lecture.
The Obsessive Note Taker
The moment the professor is opening his/her mouth, they are scribbling away. Doesn’t matter if the professor is talking about the ball game on TV the night before. It still might be on the test, to these people.
They will take notes on their notes once they get home, sometimes even typing them up. Then they make their books illegible by highlighting each and every word. All this work doesn’t really seem worth it, as their grades are no better than people who are more reasonable with their study habits.
The Technology Has Made Me Lazy Student
They pester the professor about printing out their Powerpoint slides because they’re too lazy to pick up a pen and take notes. They don’t care that this costs money, time, confines professors to the slides they’ve handed out, and that the slides are basically graphics with a minimal text. They will in fact give negative evaluations for professors who don’t kowtow to their requests.
I Have Never Used the Library Student
It’s their senior year and they don’t know how to use the electronic database to locate an article of interest. They don’t even know what a journal publication is. And their term paper is due tomorrow.
"I absolutely must be a doctor/dentist/engineer!"
Whether it’s their own choice or their parents, these students refuse to give up on their dreams of going to med school or transferring into the college of engineering or pharmacy, no matter what their grades say. I’m an academic advisor, and these students can sometimes be heartbreaking to work with. I’m sorry, sweetie, but wanting to be a doctor doesn’t necessarily mean you’re good at bio or chem, and you really need to notice your GPA is in the toilet right now and plan accordingly.
If you add “vet”, then that was me 
Took almost getting academic dismissal before I admitted it.
Andy/Amy the Agonizer:
This student agonizes over every word, every sentence, in an in-class written or in-lab typed exam, to the point that they barely finish on time, or only get part of the way through. Two main reasons for this are: they didn’t plan it very well; and they edit and proofread as they go instead of doing it after getting the words down.
Not true. I was one of those students-- like many people with ADD, if I don’t write it down it may go one ear and out the other. I also couldn’t listen (to absorb) and write at the same time. So I took verbatim transcription notes (writing down each word, one word at a time, not really hearing all that was being said, if that makes sense). Later, I would need to re-read, and possibly re-copy or make notes on, so I would actually absorb the contents of the lecture. Laugh at me all you want, but my grades were much, much worse any time I tried to take and use the “outline” lecture notes that seemed to work so well for other students.
And yeah, people make fun of you, up until they miss class and need some notes. And who do they ask? Me?
Or their cousins, the If It’s Not in the Database, It Doesn’t Exist Student. Once, one of my profs had us find an older article that wasn’t in any of the academic databases. It was in the bound journals section. I took the citation to the reference librarian, who was too happy to show me where and how I could find what I was looking for. I had the article in about 20 minutes from citation to photocopy. Meanwhile, many of my classmates bitched and moaned to the professor that the university didn’t have the article. The prof looked at me, saw the photocopy of the article on my desk, and gave the rest of the class a look that would melt ice, and asked me to explain to the class how I got the article. It was sweet.
Robin
Billy (Betty) No-Book
This student STILL doesn’t have the book in the 4th week of class because the bookstore sold out of them. Never mind the fact that he buys everything else online he doesn’t need, like iTunes and quirky T-shirts, he just can’t seem to figure out that whole books over the intarweb thing.
Before you say it, 90+% of Billy No-Books CAN afford to buy the book outside of financial aid, but are too finding a parking spot for their BMW in front of Abercombie & Fitch to be bothered with something that doesn’t directly relate to impressing their friends.
A related creature is The Unprepared Test-taker
This person never comes with his/her test materials. They have to ask for an extra Scantron/blue book/pencil/pen/sheet of paper, you name it. They may or may not have studied, but they are sure to mooch off their fellow students so they can actually take the test.
Oh god… I had an extreme one of these a few years ago. It was a C++ programming course. The guy was at just about every office hour I held all term, wanting me to validate every line of code he wrote as he wrote it (“Is this right? Is this how I do it? Am I on the right track?”) – and he wanted to write each line out on my chalkboard before he ever tried it himself on a computer. I kid you not.
And nevermind that the professor has said every day in lecture the week before finals that yes, you will need a bluebook, and every exam taken until now needed a bluebook, the TA said you’d need a bluebook, and the syllabus even says yes, indeedy, you will need a bluebook for exams.
I always bring a few spares 'cause I always know there’s going to be some idiot going “OMG I NEED A BLUEBOOK!!111one”. It’s easier to give them one than deal with their freakout. Unprepared test takers harsh my gig.
Dante has a special circle in hell reserved for accounting students who show up for their exams WITHOUT A CALCULATOR. Every exam, at least one person is calculatorless.
(Me, I carry extra batteries and an extra calculator).
Daddy Will Fix It. I had two memorable ones–the one who had Daddy call me to find out why he had gotten a D in Stats, without apparently mentioning to Daddy that he hadn’t done 3/4 of the homework. Even better was the one who brought Daddy and Daddy’s Lawyer to his plagiarism hearing with the Honor Committee.