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Professors suck

B

brianbj46

Aug 11, 2006
379
0
madison, wi
#1
How can professors get away with this:

I had a genetics exam last week, the professor was constantly cruising at lightspeed through everything, until a day before the exam so that he could get everything he wanted on the exam. Never left time for questions in his lectures.
The TA's could not even do his problems in discussion or at the review sections. Their most common response was "um....i'll have to ask the professor how to do this one and get back to you guys, we're learning this at the same time you all are."

We finally got our exam scores back today. The professor sent out an email that said he's extremely dissappointed in us, the average was a 45%.....and he considers this the D range.


Every other class i've had, no matter how badly the students do, the average is always regulated to be in the C or BC range. What a butthole.
How can professors get away with being such huge deuchebags?
 
#6
Go to the department head or get a whole group of student together and go to the instructor first. This was obviously a bad test with inadequate preparation. Instructors can screw up like anyone else - and it sounds like this guy tried to do too much in too short a time, then the test penalized students for his problem.

45% is in fact generous for a D, but the question is; how many students got anything BUT lousy grades. I've been in higher ed for 27 years, and when all the students do poorly, it means either a poorly designed test or inadequate instruction before the test.
 
#11
More often than not in such cases, the students are just lazy. A lot of people failed my first genetics exam. I got a 93.5 and I knew several kids who scored in the B to A range.

Genetics should be a cakewalk if your lab grade is averaged in with lecture.

If you want you can post the questions and I'll see how unfair it really is.
 
#13
As an actual professor, and current department head, I will say two things: make sure you actually do your work, and then some; also familiarize yourself with your rights as a student. A typical university has a means for filing grievances against teachers who don't do their jobs, however, grades themselves are usually not grievable. If you are not the only one having problems, talk to your classmates and document anything improper.
 
#14
Did you guys not understand my first post? OR what "average" means? I'm not complaining that I did poorly, i'm complaining that the AVERAGE score on his exam was below 50% and he thinks that it was our fault for not studying hard enough. This is upper level genetics required for all natural science majors including pre-med at a major university.
I obviously dont' think that a D for 45% is bad, but when your test average for the whole class is a 45%, every other professor i've ever had would at LEAST curve that up to a C!
 
#15
Ericman197 said:
More often than not in such cases, the students are just lazy. A lot of people failed my first genetics exam. I got a 93.5 and I knew several kids who scored in the B to A range.

Genetics should be a cakewalk if your lab grade is averaged in with lecture.

If you want you can post the questions and I'll see how unfair it really is.
Click to expand...

We don't have lab. It is only a lecture. And it has in the realm of somewhere between 200 to 400 students.

Like i said before, the guy shoved too much info down our throats too fast. I DID read the book. When i went to the TA-organized review session, the TA's could NOT figure out how to do the questions that we were assigned as homework questions. I think they should have been made to take the test as well as a frame of reference.
 
#17
I've taken undergrad courses where I have to read 100+ pages, take the test, and THEN the material was covered in class. Those were hard tests, but I always got good grades.

I had to outline everything I read in the text, then find the essential information and put it on 3x5 cards. I studied those cards until the info was mostly memorized.

Fortunately, I only had a few classes like that. Thank God.

You can do it. It might take an insane amount of effort, but it's possible. It all depends on how badly you want the grade.

Joe
 
#19
Fontaine said:
im going to render a guess and say first year, like me, except i PAY ATTENTION!
Click to expand...

Thanks for guessing, but guess what, you fail. I am a 4th year, and i have attended every single lecture, and optional discussion this semester. I took notes as best i could, but didn't get everything. His slides were also available online.

The point really doesn't focus on my individual score or study habits. The point is that an exam with an average of 45% is a poor reflection on the professor.
 

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