Thursday, February 28, 2008

Keepin the streak alive

Alright, Jane, here's another thing I hate.

I have this one prof who has, on a previous occasion, given assignment instructions on the day the assignment is due. By which I mean, as we were going to hand it it, she says, 'Now look yours over and make sure that you did such and such.' And if we didn't? 'Well, then just go ahead and add it in.'

...

This, apparently, is more a teaching style than a one-time mistake. We had a midterm today, part take-home and part in-class (quick aside: worst possible scenario. Not only do I have to put in out-of-class time pulling something together, but I ALSO have to study, and THEN I have to engage my brain during class time as well). She decides she's going to lecture first, and then have us write our in-class part last so that people who finish early can leave early, which is fine. Except that everything she's lecturing on has major ramifications for the take-home part that we all have typed and printed and ready to go on our desks. One girl finally says, 'Are you going to cut us some slack on our take-homes since you didn't lecture on this until today?' to which the prof replies, 'Well, as long as you did such and such and such, you'll be fine.' Another guy (probably speaking for the whole class) pipes up with, 'And if we didn't?'

'Oh, go ahead and add it in now.'

!&#^%$?!?!?!?!

This is a fairly heavily-researched, extensively thought-through and carefully organized report. You aren't just asking me to replace all the 'the's with 'racecar,' or to turn all my semi-colons into smiley faces. I can't restructure my whole argument with a few pen strokes.

And no, I didn't raise a stink because I am, how you say, l'exhausted, but if ANYthing comes back all 'You have made an incorrect assumption here' or whatever, I'm sticking it to the (wo)man. Trust.

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