- No syllabus, no explanation of grading, no expectations.
- Of the three exams we took, we received back PART of the first one. That's it. No grades to chart our progress.
- Though the class was designated as oral-intensive, no part of our grade was based on our participation in class (Nor were there any papers or other assignments. If you don't test well, you're screwed!).
Yes, I'm bitter. And mad. And I'll get over it. If only my 4.0 had been marred by a class, and a teacher, that I actually respected.
6 comments:
It's all because you dropped the F bomb that first day.
I think Eric is right about effing at the teacher. That doesn't mean it was the wrong thing to do.
In the Olden Days when I took Psych 101, there was a mandatory weekly lab session. One of our tasks was to learn stimulus-response behavioral conditioning. Each student was assigned their own white rat, each rat in its own cage. At one end of the cage there was a bar that the rat could press, and a spout that delivered a rat-nummy when the bar was pressed. Straightforward cause and effect.
There was also a hole in the wall that served no functional purpose other than to mess with the rat. One favorite trick was to train the rat to poke his nose into the hole before a rat-nummy was delivered. It was arbitrary and controlled by the hand of the inept 19-year-old psych student. I believe it was also demeaning and shaming to the rat, who was actually a much more competent scientist than the student.
Now that we're human adults, it's important to remember that we'll bar press, but we will never ever nose poke. Not even for an A.
Additionally, let's face it. The only people who maintain a long-term 4.0 are those anorexic girls whose fathers are boinking the secretary.
Good job. On to the next thing.
I feel your pain. When I was at Macalester, I had a 4.0 going until my second to last semester, when I got a B+ in freakin' ART APPRECIATION.
That was officially the easiest class at the whole school, and somehow I didn't quite measure up to the other students' appreciation of art. Maybe living in Europe for a couple years had dulled my senses.
I should have just taken an advanced writing class and gone for the easy A.
I graduated with a shameful 3.98 or something like that. Clearly it still galls me, 20 years later.
Not that you'll spend the rest of your life feeling bitter. (But you might.)
Drat. Who needs another take on "life is not fair 101?" I hope you shared your review of the course via a course evaluation or some other communication with the college.
Why does it feel shameful to admit that I was one of those long-term 4.0 students? (No boinking father or anorexia, though).
My first non-A at Concordia was for the hardest class I took there, Honors Modern European Intellectual History, and I was as proud of my final grade as for any perfect score. You are right, when you respect the prof, and the grade is hard earned but fair, it's easy to live with.
But the second A- was in my first education general, taught by the most horrid teacher ever, ironically. He had us purchase two texts, never assigned a single chapter, then tested us on the (fairly irrelevant) material randomly. We did some writing, but it was unguided and graded oddly. He lectured so poorly.
What made me madder than the stupid grade (which I contested, and got changed to an A, although that change was never officially made to my transcript -- gee, do you think it bothered me?) was that he was such a horrid example of a teacher, and THAT'S WHAT HE TAUGHT.
(PS My most proud A's were for voice lessons, by the way. Lucy knew I wasn't a music major, and that I was the 4.0 type, so she probably went easy on me. But the year I sang juries for Jonathan and he gave me an A? Priceless.)
We're not going to talk about my organic chemistry grades.
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