# When college students write about abortion... **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 10, 2009, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-college-students-write-about-abortion/513356 "2009-10-10T23:15:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![ENugent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/4af34b/32.png) [@ENugent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ENugent)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-college-students-write-about-abortion/513356/101 "2009-10-15T16:09:42Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > My international students are actually usually my best students. They almost always show up, work hard, participate in class discussions. The majority of my failing/plagiarizing students are American-born and raised. I do think that most of them are in college because their parents told them “college, job, or get out of my house,” or they need to stay on their parents’ insurance. Based on the one semester that I TA’d graduate thermodynamics, the absolute worst refusal to allow himself to be helped was from an international student (Japanese). I offered to meet with him separately to discuss the material and/or test-taking strategies, I probably wrote as much on his homework as he did (at least the ones he turned in), I asked the professor to speak to him (thinking perhaps he had an issue with me being a woman) - total disconnect. And you had to pass this class to stay in grad school in our department, too. I never did figure out what his problem was. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-college-students-write-about-abortion/513356/102 "2009-10-15T16:14:35Z")
There’s also the phenomenon of some students who have learning disabilities which have not yet been diagnosed or which they’re trying to hide. We sometimes ask students if this is a possibility and suggest that they get tested at our DSP&S Center. This has mixed results. One colleague suggested testing for a student, and the student responded in a tone of outrage: “ARE YOU CALLING ME A RETARD?” ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-college-students-write-about-abortion/513356/103 "2009-10-15T16:18:43Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > Note: in at least some cases, the failing and/or plagiarizing international students stay enrolled because they have to maintain a certain number of units. At CSU, this applies to a lot of local students too. If they’re getting funding or loans, they often need to have a certain course load in order to keep the money coming. ---
**Author:** ![NajaNivea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/22d042/32.png) [@NajaNivea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NajaNivea)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-college-students-write-about-abortion/513356/104 "2009-10-15T17:57:26Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > While I’m not so sure about the “youth is wasted on the young” bromide, college most definitely is. I wish there was some way that people could afford to go from high school to trade school or some other “learn a profession” course, and then have a few years real world experience, and _then_ go to college when they’re at very least in their mid 20s, preferably their 30s. Preach it. At seventeen I had absolutely no business being at college. I was certainly capable of the work, but with no perspective on anything that would have made the experience particularly _useful_. When I think back about what opportunities were available to me on that campus, and what courses I actually _took_… what a waste of time and money. I am actually fortunate to be using the degree I hold in a job I love, but I don’t feel like my university education has much to do with that. During those four years I was pretty much consumed with figuring out how I was going to pay the rent, and also being a idiot of a teenager. School was incidental. What a waste. > [@](#): > > “Mr. Gambini, that is a lucid, intelligent, well thought-out objection” Nice. Just to join in the “kids these days” party, the worst group-project experience I ever had was one time in a sociology course where we were required to write a group paper. This was a reasonably prestigious university and it was an upper-division course. We were in groups of eight. I volunteered to compile and edit everyone’s page-and-a-half contributions to our ten-page paper. How hard could that be? More than one of them didn’t have a single coherent, grammatically-correct sentence anywhere on the page. Two didn’t know what paragraphs were. I felt a whole lot better about my writing capabilities in relation to my peers after that project. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-college-students-write-about-abortion/513356/105 "2009-10-15T22:59:54Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > I had a meeting with a student who’s failing my class yesterday, and he flat out admitted that he’d never even read the syllabus, so his failure to hand in any assignments and his failing the exam was because he simply did not know (and seemingly did not care, based on his blase attitude) when anything was due. > > I mean, I can help students who are struggling with the course material, but what can you do with someone so detached from something that they voluntarily chose? Maybe they didn’t realize they’d have to do some actual work–as in brainwork. A fellow English prof told me she received a negative evaluation comment from a student along those lines. It went like this: “I didn’t like this professor because she made me think!” (Apparently, making him write in a writing class was already too much to ask.) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-college-students-write-about-abortion/513356/106 "2009-10-16T05:04:41Z")
Re feedback: when I was at Miami (a total of 16 terms), every term the “best TA” price went to the same TA. The one whose students’ minimum grade was a 90 every time and who would give a 10 out of 10 to someone who’d submitted only 1/5 of the homework because what had been submitted was right? That one! Her minimum grade was a 90 because the professor had refused to accept all-100 grades. I would have been pretty pissed if I’d been a good student and gotten the same grades as the classmates not handing anything in. But I know that many of our students just saw “A, great!” and didn’t realize that, since at some point they would all get evaluated against each other (most were premed and wanted to go to our med school), everybody-gets-As doesn’t really help anybody’s prospects, as well as not giving you feedback about where you need to improve. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-college-students-write-about-abortion/513356/107 "2009-10-16T06:11:17Z")
I agree that’s pretty fucked up, **Nava**. Still, having taught at a school where there were a lot of students who wanted to be doctors, i do feel a bit of sympathy for that TA. There is no creature in all of academia that whines and complains and cajoles and argues about their grades more than the pre-med student with a B+. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-college-students-write-about-abortion/513356.md?page=5)