‘What Can I Do to Pass?’

Although I hate to see graduate and professional students lose the interest subsidy, I am encouraged that most of the savings from the elimination of the subsidy and direct loan repayment incentives will be used to shore up the important Pell Grant program.  The subsidy and repayment incentive cuts were estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to produce a savings of $21.6 billion, with $17 billion of that savings going to the Pell Grant program.
I applaud the authors’ recognition of the promise of Income-Based Repayment, and urge the higher education community and the government to increase borrower awareness of IBR and its potential benefits.

All of this mess is just so complicated, but one of the key messages is that yes, education benefits all of society. So why do we nitpick so much over all these interest rates and ooh lets change it from 6.8% to 5.2% and blah blah blah, I feel like its nickel and diming students. First, people need to realize the cost of college in general has been shooting up because of increasing funding (federal AND private) that is unsustainable, and the only way to bring the costs back down is to force it down thru the govt. Use your imagination, whatever ways you can think of they could do it. Cap it, as they like to say. Cap the hell out of it! Clamp it even.
Then secondly once costs are down, maybe we can think about the govt making costs super reasonable like they were in the 70′s, when all the 50/60 year olds went to college. So that working during college would actually cover it.
Maybe subsidize it especially for majors in things like alternative energy and cleaning up our environment, beneficial things to everyone. Honestly, even if I were making money now, or was the CEO of Sallie Mae… after I’d made lots of money, I don’t think I’d enjoy living in a society of under-educated people, seeing people not living up to their full potential. Seeing few advancements made by society as a whole. We want people thinking, changing, inventing. Even billionaires do.

Not suggesting making it totally free like Europe including Sweden… places with super highly educated population.. don’t wanna get too crazy off the bat. But something different!

Also right now, its outrageous that bankruptcy protection was taken away from private loan borrowers, a very economically unsound decision in 2005. That must be fixed for starters.

On the other hand, you could also make the argument that graduate students have already made it through college once, and are a better and safer investment for our tax dollars than the most underprepared population of undergrads.  So why screw them with higher interest rates and no loan subsidies, particularly when things like graduate scholarships and fellowships are drying up and, unlike undergrads, who can get Pell money for free plus have greater eligibility for scholarships, loans are the only game in town for grad students?

In physics, where exams and coursework can be especially challenging, grades are curved (with the mean final grade being a low B…depends on the class, the spread of the grade distribution, etc.) Therefore, in order to be assured of passing a class, a student needs to perform at least as well as the average student in the class.  If he or she can do that without attending lectures, then so be it.  But little consideration will be given to a student who never shows up and subsequently performs poorly on exams.

Most annoying question ever: “Can I ask you a question?”

Second most annoying question: Are you busy?

Did I miss anything yesterday?

How about, “Since you gave me a D in the course, can I turn in the extra credit now?”

Yep! Equity works only one way. If I perceive I am not being treated as well as the other students, I scream “that’s not fair!” If I need a special concession to pass the class, that’s fair.

Yes, I ‘gave you a D’ … you really earned an F!

I make it clear on the second day that I do not give grades. They earn grades. I remind them of this several times during the term. I have not had anyone say to me “You gave me a…” because I’ve hammered the point home that they are accountable for that grade. All I do is evaluate what they did and assign the grade based on their performance. I don’t “give” grades. 

I agree 100%.The general tophead moto whenever  the syllabuws of a course is publicised should
be “get out of bed, get off your soffa and come to class, even if it is an early morning one!”In all cases I avoid confrontations by allowing open book exams but with less easy to pass questions.I thiw way also I can tackle the usual  “weak memory to remember formulas” excuse!

Most annoying question? “Is it ok if I miss the first day of class?” Usually the student then goes on to tell me why and it’s because they didn’t make their plane reservations early enough or their family is going on vacation or…

“Will this be on the test?”

During the last week of the semester,  getting this: “I need a letter of recommendation; can you write one for a deadline 4 days from now? I know we’ve never really even met, but I need it for _(Fill in reason here)__”

– Do you curve?
– Curve? What does it mean?

I wonder if it’s not a culture thing . . . when it comes to football, basketball, poker, et. als. the RULEBOOK applies. If disputes arise, the referees dig out the documents to make sure that what goes down is “fair’. Many of our fellow citizens spanning the full range of social stations seem to believe that fairness is a flexible notion designed to relieve them of discomfort, responsibility or duty as an honorable individual. Paying a speeding ticket, showing up for class, or revealing their skills through the written language is a trifle to be negotiated away if at all possible.

It is unfortunate that these young citizens are not abused of that idea before they come to college. They expend a lot of dollars for the privilege of tapping into the time, talent and resources of their teachers. They are seldom taught that the free market exchange of value is a two-way street. Both traders of time, talent, and resources walk away from the negotiation thinking they got the better part of the deal . . . each gave something they valued less than what they received.

When the trade demands more than a quantity of their parent’s (or borrowed) money they feel overly taxed, “Shucks, nobody every told me that my contribution required me to actually DO something too.” It’s like paying big dollars for a computer lacking an expectation of loading on some software and learning to USE it to add value to their lives.

At some point they need to learn that meaningful exchange of value ultimately demands more than putting quarters in the slot and pulling a handle.

My favorite wasn’t really a question – more like a comment, and it’s something that happened to my husband, an English professor.  A student came up to him and said “I really need to get an A in this class.  I’m going to law school.”  After he told her that he was happy to give A grades for A-level work, and wasn’t like some profs both of us had had in the past who said bluntly “I never give As, to anyone, ever”, she repeated “No, you don’t understand.  I need to get an A.”  (Running through his head – “Oh?  Gee, thanks for telling me – it’s good to know I have at least one student who wants an A, when everyone else surely wants Ds …”) So he talked to her about what sort of work would be expected from her in order to earn an A.  Then she repeated “No, I don’t want to hear about that – you just don’t get it.  I need an A, because I want to go to law school.”  She was telling him that she expected him to just hand her an A, because of her future plans, regardless of whether or not she earned one.  (Again, running through his head – “That’s very nice for you, but I’m sorry, I’m not your daddy.  It doesn’t matter much to me personally whether you become a lawyer or something else entirely.  I have 200+ students to whom I teach English – are you self-centered or crazy enough to think that I become intimately involved with the career aspirations of every single one of them?  I have enough to deal with teaching them English!”)  Ultimately, he told her that he hoped her aspirations were fulfilled, but under no circumstances did he give anyone a grade if they didn’t earn it, so his advice was to do the work conscientiously, come to him for help if she needed it, and attend class.

I had a fun twist on the law school comment.  A student was failing in my course in a major in a health-realted field.  He said it didn’t matter because he didn’t care about this major and when he graduated, he was going to law school.  I tried to point out to him that his undergraduate GPA, regardless of the major, would be of interest to a law school.  It seemed to pass over him.  Then he told me his father was a neurosurgeon, as if that were more relevant.  Sigh.

As a physicist, and one now teaching introductory physics courses, but also one who spent almost two decades in industry as an engineer and supervisor of engineers and other technical workers, I SINCERELY hope that physicsordie’s description of “curving” applies only to graduate school courses.  As one considering hiring a applicant in a technical capacity, I would expect and depend upon a “B-” grade in an undergraduate physics course to mean, at a minimum, that the applicant was competent at symbolic calculations and could solve roughly 80 percent of the problems in his physics textbook.  I would have (and did have) zero interest in what the class average grade was in his course.

Early in my career, I specifically told my class not to say “please give me an A, because I am trying to get into medical school.” The next day or so, a student came to my office and said 
“please give me an A, because I am trying to get into law school.” What? He thought that was totally different? Or was he just trying to show he would make a good lawyer?

I respectfully disagree.  If being in class is *actually* necessary to a student’s learning, as measured by exams or other assessments, then students who do not attend will not be successful, and word will get around.  Resorting to a minimal attendance policy may be a sign that, in fact, attendance is *not* actually necessary for students to learn material and they can pass exams without it by learning the material on their own.  It would be better to have graded & required work that takes place in class, or to actually test on the content of class discussions.  Otherwise, if students can be successful on our assessments without attending, then *by definition* class attendance is not a requirement for success.

YES! Thank you!!! My students hear the same from me on the first day. Glad that I’m not alone in this .

One can have other reasons for an attendance policy. Mine, for example, isn’t directed toward getting students to attend class, but rather to keep them from drifting in the door 5 minutes late. (That is, in my classes, if you’re late you’re scored as absent.)

On a Tuesday, “My grandmother died.  Her funeral is a week from Thursday, so I’ll need to be excused for all of next week.”