Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Most unwonderful time of the year

The stretch of time between spring break and May final grade submission is the worst period of the entire year, in my opinion. Not only are you trying to finish up all the normal end-of-the-semester things, but you're also trying to finish up all the end-of-the-academic-year things, and seniors are trying to graduate, and graduate students are trying to defend & submit, AND you're trying to gear up for the summer's round of research projects and conferences.

And on top of that, we also have my Least Favorite Emails Ever. These are the emails wherein the students complain about me not rounding their grade from a C to a B-. I politely point out that they had all semester long, full of numerous opportunities, to earn a better grade, and that as stated on my syllabus, which we all agreed upon at the beginning of the semester, "I round strictly to the tenths place."

This semester, the first student to whine at me about this will risk my stony silence and bitchy demeanor. Seriously, I gave opportunities to resubmit assignments. To petition for exam score revisions if their reasoning was sound. To complete some extra credit. If a student did not take advantage of any of these opportunities, it galls me when they ask me to bump their grade out of the goodness of my heart.

5 comments:

Life said...

its great to see professors making this much effort for students to give them good grades.
I am going to complete my btech degree this semseter and i wish i had all the professors like you ( Only if you do what you are saying here:P)

Anonymous said...

I also give lots of opportunities for them to do a little extra work to pull their score up. They have a TON of things that they can do. They are all outlined in the syllabus, along with any deadlines that may exist. I announce extra things in class. What I find is that students making a low A will do the extra work to ensure that they get an A. The rest don't bother doing any of the extra work, and then they want me to just bump their grade up because they "need" a higher grade, but can't be bothered to work for it.

Average Professor said...

What I find is that students making a low A will do the extra work to ensure that they get an A. The rest don't bother doing any of the extra work, and then they want me to just bump their grade up because they "need" a higher grade, but can't be bothered to work for it.

That's exactly it. It's all I can do to not tell them how spoiled and absurd that behavior seems to me.

Ms.PhD said...

For crying out loud, would it kill you to give them more than a tenth of leeway? How many exam questions/homework assignments is that? One? If they're actually within a tenth of getting a B-, that is a really harsh policy.

If they "agreed" to the policy at the beginning of the course, it's because they HAVE NO CHOICE. Would you, as a student, start out a class by picking a fight with the professor over anything, no matter how unfair?

Didn't think so.

Anonymous said...

Cisalpine or Transalpine?
I think it probably galls you.
Great blog!
- anonymous wiseass undergrad