My College Thread

ossobuco wrote:

Some places I think of as rather low in education esteem do call themselves universities. It may be the presence of some research activity associated with at least one possible doctoral degree that enables the university name.

Well, that's what I thaught. (Besides, here in Europe, we just study the subjects of our future profession - others was done before at grammar school, secundary school, gymnasium, whatever it is called in various languages.)

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GRRR, this whole roll call thing is getting absurd.

My English teacher is an incoherent dolt (a foreigner with a thick accent and bad grammar as in "I been"). A nightmare prof.

He warned the class that if we have two absences we would lose a grade. So my A would become a B and so on with every additional absence (and tardiness also counts against the grade).

My company plans to send me overseas for at least a week, and I don't think I can maintain perfect attendance. I explained this to him and his incoherent reply seemed to indicate that while he was sympathetic he would not tolerate absence for any reason.

This kind of thing just pisses me off. Goddamn lazy educators (lazy because attendance is the simplistic and easy way out).

I have until the 9th to drop the class without it counting against me. I'm seriously considering it.

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Consider talking with someone at the department, if there is a department, or administration, or counselor, for possible breath of sanity. City colleges, which is what we used to call them, ran, in my time, more like high schools, sort of lasso'ing people. UCLA was the direct opposite. The trick is to move from one to the other.

Did you ever check out walking into UC as who you are, re self education? There might be some room there if you talk to the right people, whoever they are.

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You'd think speaking English passably should be a prerequisite for teaching the course.

I had a woman with a very pronounced accent--she looked Scandinavian--very delicate skin, "white" hair--teaching medical terminology--where the pronunciation of words is vital.

She mispronounced average words, in addition to the required ones.

Craven, I'd shop for a better prof. The grapevine will tell you--or you can check out their attendance policy on their syllabus--I guess this should be available on the school website. Is it too late to add? Is the same course available to you by another prof? If you can't get English, maybe you could add something else? Anyway--my manner of support.

My biology prof stated a similar standard for attendance, but when I went to him later to test it out, he said that was for the usual suspects who get away with as much as they can. Since you've already asked him and he's not budging, it would likely be in your best interests to drop.

I couldn't stand a drop in a letter grade for such BS as that.

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Craven de Kere wrote:

GRRR, this whole roll call thing is getting absurd.

My English teacher is an incoherent dolt (a foreigner with a thick accent and bad grammar as in "I been"). A nightmare prof.

He warned the class that if we have two absences we would lose a grade. So my A would become a B and so on with every additional absence (and tardiness also counts against the grade).

My company plans to send me overseas for at least a week, and I don't think I can maintain perfect attendance. I explained this to him and his incoherent reply seemed to indicate that while he was sympathetic he would not tolerate absence for any reason.

This kind of thing just pisses me off. Goddamn lazy educators (lazy because attendance is the simplistic and easy way out).

I have until the 9th to drop the class without it counting against me. I'm seriously considering it.

I know this is a different world to the academic one I am used to - but I would expect that there is a written POLICY about such things somewhere - and that it ought to be easy to find out what it is.

In my other-world experience, these are global policies and not susceptible to the whims of a particular lecturer...

Bona-fide absences - such as physically not being in the country - ought to be fine for a percentage of an undergrad English class.

I would check before you drop.

Edit: As I understand it, you are looking at what you are doing as a way of getting into "proper" university as fast as possible?

So - if this topic CAN be made to work for you, it will be an easy stepping stone for you in that direction?

That is the basis on which I am suggesting checking if the guy is just being dumb before withdrawing. Doesn't sound as though you will be getting anything from the class other than a tactical step, if that IS what ir can give you....

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Yeah find out the appeal process before you drop - sorry the guy is azzh___.

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ossobuco wrote:

City colleges, which is what we used to call them, ran, in my time, more like high schools, sort of lasso'ing people. UCLA was the direct opposite. The trick is to move from one to the other.

it's been ages since i dropped out of UCLA, but i've been in either community college or CSU during much of the last 10 years (it takes a long time to graduate taking 2 classes a semester), and can tell you that many of the same people teach in both. they're known as "adjunct faculty" and are the academic equivalent of temps. some were excellent, and some not.

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I was talking about the matter of attendance records. My memory is they cared if you showed up in the beginning, for their enrolled student lists, and then the deal was if you passed the tests or not, in the bigger classes. So in chem classes you had to be at the labs and do the experiments, but not necessarily be at the lectures. I had a friend who did very well in quant analysis and only went to the labs, just read the book after the first couple of classes.

I don't know how CSUs are on attendance. Actually, I don't know how the the universities are now on attendance, as my experience was quite a while ago.

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I work in the Registrar's Office at my school. (Factor in it being a tiny school in the rural South...but it IS accredited by the University System of GA, so we didn't make up the rules.) A prof is given WIDE latitude here, including grading system, and attendance policy. We have kids calling all the time trying to get out of an attendance prob with a prof. They never do. We say, "It is up to the discretion of your professor."

We routinely have student trying to get around an intructor's edict--and they are rather straight-forwardly told their only recourse is through the instructor. Therefore, unreasonable, assy profs with arbitrary rules shoulf be avoided at all costs. I have waited two semesters to get the right prof for the right class--because that little mark they lake on your permanent transcript never goes away.

I had one little friend in a class who was at the threshold of a nervous breakdown during finals week--and couldn't cope with everything that was due that week. Because she'd had a diagnosis of ADHD and was taking meds for anxiety, I told her about the Special Needs/disability provisions, and she was able to demand additional time to get her work in. That's the only time I know of anyone beating the system.

That's why I think Craven's instincts to unload that asshole are correct.

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Yeah?

Like I said - it's a different world to the one I am used to.

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Quote:

I know this is a different world to the academic one I am used to - but I would expect that there is a written POLICY about such things somewhere - and that it ought to be easy to find out what it is.

In my other-world experience, these are global policies and not susceptible to the whims of a particular lecturer...

Bona-fide absences - such as physically not being in the country - ought to be fine for a percentage of an undergrad English class.

I would check before you drop.

Lash is right. Each instructor sets his/her own attendance policy.

Community colleges have wide ranges of students: intelligent/dull; motivated/indifferent; energetic/lazy.

After the regimentation of high school many students go hog wild cutting classes--and waste their tutition money.

Find a professor who is more savvy about the needs of non-traditional students who have committments other than classes.

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Boy - that seems so weird.

But - what woud I know about English classes?

I said "different TO" - twice....

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dlowan wrote:

Boy - that seems so weird.

I only can agree (and 'my academic world' [= the one, I studied and tought in] looks different is well).

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

dlowan wrote:
Boy - that seems so weird.

I only can agree (and 'my academic world' [= the one, I studied and tought in] looks different is well).

Lol - like I said, anyone would think it a damned foreign country, or something.

Anyhoo - it means I better STF up in terms of advice or comments - but I wish Craven would tell me more about his psychology curriculum when he gets the chance - and it would be fun to know what on earth they do in this run-for-little-kiddies-type English class! Dick and Dora?

I do recall a friend of mine who was teaching sociology in Madison saying that he was actually forced to deliver a multiple choice question type exam to students there - in SOCIOLOGY!!!! I still do not think he has recovered from that one - and that is a very proper and esteemed university indeed, as I understand it.

A foreign country.....

I think we had to attend a certain number of tutorials at the unis I studied in - but I do not believe lectures were compulsory - except, of course, in German I (The lecturer called a roll in that one! And he was Dutch - 9.00 am THREE times a week!). I eschewed most lectures in my post-grad social work training, cos they were so dumb - and I went only once to the 9.00 am Monday UTTERLY compulsory Human Development tutorial all first year because the tutor was, so far as I was able to tell, somewhat intellectually challenged in the area. My thesis was proven when she commented, at the end of the year, when I attended the last tutorial from politeness, that my contributions had been excellent. And she was NOT being sarcastic, which was my first thought.

Lab pracs were compulsory, of course - but you could make them up if you were ill, or unavoidably called away - if you were nice to the lab techies.

I WENT to most lectures, as it happened, cos they were good, generally - sometimes fantastic - except in social work. Ptooey.

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dlowan--

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.

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One of my memorable teachers was/is, if he is still alive, Swedish, Fritiof Sjostrand, something of a pioneering electron microscopist. He taught what was called histology, but was really a trip into biophysics. I got the highest grade in the class, I heard (she brags) - a B+. I had to write the notes - his lecture was in English - phonetically and go home and rewrite them with dawning understanding. Um, they offered me a job... looking back, I should have taken it. I was really interested in the subject as he taught it, once I got what he was saying. Kept working at the hospital I was working at instead. One of those roads not taken...
I've told that story before on a2k, sorry if you've heard it.

I have long thought the hardest thing for Craven would turn out to be forebearance in the early and even some later classes.

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Noddy24 wrote:

dlowan--

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.

But those who CAN teach are worth their weight in diamonds.

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That's right.

Some teachers get you excited about a subject, by the mix of their enthusiasm combined with explanatory talent for intricacies and overview.

I'll name some, just for the naming rather too long in the thanking - Alan Parducci, psych 101; Rafael Martinez, bacterial cell physiology - which turned out to be all about flagellae, his meteor, however you spell that. Looking back, flagellae as a microcosm. Gordon Nunez, in the extension program, for advanced painting. Sam Amato, advanced painting (he did, he taught). Nori Hashibe, elements of design. Sister Mel, baseball and general education, 6th and 7th grade.

To Craven, any chance of transferring to another Eng 1A or 101 or whatever it is? I am sympathetic to dumping it and learning from the experience, learning what, I am not sure.

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I actually used the break in class to go over to the counselling office to see if I could change teachers but it was closed. So I'll try again on Wednesday.

Thing is, I am ill now (I haven't been diagnosed but I think I caught mono) and am thinking it may be a good idea to scale down to one class to weather it out.

Anywho, I will be doing the homework for Psyc over the next few days so I'll post about it.

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okay, good.

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My College Thread

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