Whinny Students

[Rageaholic]

I realize this may sound hypocritical since I have posted a lot of threads ranting about sucky professors, assignments, or policies I don't like. But I leave my bitching for here and don't take it out on the professor. And I don't bitch about *gasp* having to take the final!!

I sense that students joking "can we skip the final?" or "does this mean we all get an A har har har" is the academic equivilent to a customer joking "that must mean it's for free!". I've heard it quite a bit and it's starting to grate me (and it's not even directed at me!).

But students in one of my classes took this to a new low. The class wasn't even that hard and students were still stressing over the final. The professor said that the final was not worth stressing out over and that most of our grade would count toward a volunteer project. However, every week students would stress about it and some even claimed that he said there'd be no final (which is not true, it was right there in the syllibus!!!!!!). So our second to last class comes and to my surprise, it turns out it's a take home final. Just a few short answer questions that would only take (at most) a couple of hours at home. No studying, no remembering from textbooks, and I wouldn't even need to come to class that day. This was a godsend (and I wasn't even that worried about the test to begin with!)

Well for some of the students, this was not a godsend. They were still insisting that he said there was no final and claimed he was "untrustworthy". Untrustworthy?!?! He said the final was nothing to worry about and made it a TAKE HOME EXAM where we wouldn't even need to remember much of the textbook.

How is that untrustworthy?!!!!!!

[HYHYBT]

Some people simply cannot be satisfied.

Me, I generally prefer finals that count a large portion of the grade, assuming there have been other tests of the same type in the course.

But there *are* courses where the final exam is optional under certain conditions, so even aside from stupid jokes, you'd still probably have a few asking.

Of course, the final exam is always optional, in a sense. You didn't *have* to sign up for the course at all, and you don't *have* to get a good grade in it. If you don't mind an F, go ahead and skip it. (And if you can get better than an F without taking the final, you probably don't want to skip it anyway.)

[Andara Bledin]

Is it bad that I see the title and immediately my mental image is that all of the students look like MLP rejects?

^-.-^

[Giggle Goose]

I sense that students joking "can we skip the final?" or "does this mean we all get an A har har har" is the academic equivilent to a customer joking "that must mean it's for free!". I've heard it quite a bit and it's starting to grate me (and it's not even directed at me!).

Wow....I never thought of it that way, but I think you're right! I feel like telling some of those students "No, you dumbasses, because if they were handing out As, then everyone would graduate from college!" Yeah, doesn't work like that....I'm not a professor but I feel like it's really disrespectful when students act that way.

It's like EWs on the academic level. Just because their mommies and daddies paid for the class they should automatically get an A and the teacher should bow to them

[Hyena Dandy]

Stressing over finals is just natural. Even if its not a huge deal, its still a test, its still very stressy. Besides, finals all tend to happen at once. There's a lot of stress going on for the students. The difference between the "Can we skip finals" joke and the "Can it be free" joke is that the "Can we skip finals" is usually made to relieve tension in the person making it. Whereas purchasing things is rarely something you'd be freaking out about.

That said, its one thing to be stressed, and another to say "YOU SAID THERE WOULD BE NO FINAL!"

CHECK YOUR DAMN SYLLABUS. >_>

Is it bad that I see the title and immediately my mental image is that all of the students look like MLP rejects?

^-.-^

No.

Its awesome.

I hate when G3 ponies are in my class too.

Actually, my thought was

"They are not whining, they are complaining. Do you want to hear whining? ThiiIIiis is whIIIning"

[DrFaroohk]

Meh, people take the joking too seriously. Disrespectful? Where are we, in the vatican? At a funeral? More likely it's someone who couldn't get a real job in their field and is now stuck with students, and they're being pissy.

Just because you don't find it funny, there's no reason to get all high and mighty about it. I always imagine the snotty faced professor with the glasses resting on the edge of his nose, making sure he can give his most dissatisfied pouty face and the RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION OF YOUR DISRESPECT RAWWWWR!!

I'm convinced that college is less about actually learning the material than just preparing you for the bullshit out in the real world. You need to learn that sometimes your boss will be a humorless prick, and you need to learn that he's going to invade your life and make you do things that have nothing to do with your work, and you need to learn that even after you suck his dick enough times, the promotion will go to the guy he brings him cocaine at lunch.

The people who can handle that are the ones who do well in college. The people who can't...turn into me.

[Andara Bledin]

Gee... biased much?

^-.-^

[AdminAssistant]

I sense that students joking "can we skip the final?" or "does this mean we all get an A har har har" is the academic equivilent to a customer joking "that must mean it's for free!". I've heard it quite a bit and it's starting to grate me (and it's not even directed at me!).

Ugh, I HATE THAT!!!

Look, I would love to skip the final. Because while the students are dashing off to their homes for vacation, I'll be parked behind a pile of exams that I have to grade, as well as doing my own g-ddamned homework, before I can enjoy the holidays. I also love the, "What do I have to make on the final to pass/get a B/ get an A?" bullshit. Your grades are on Blackboard, the formula is in the syllabus, you do the fucking math. Also, maybe you should have started caring about your grade at the beginning of the semester and not the last few weeks.

I have a handful of perfectionist students who are driving me absolutely batty right now. They're getting A's in the class, unless they skip the final, but every few days I get lengthy e-mails about what's going to be on the final and how should they study...etc. Meanwhile, I can't get the struggling students to reply to an e-mail so that I can set something up to help them.

I've been getting a lot of other complaints from students, but they're mostly valid. This professor is by far the worst I've ever worked with. Her lectures are confusing, she condescends to them, she pushes a lot of her personal politics, and she's generally very disorganized and technologically challenged, which I don't think is acceptable for faculty. You don't need to be a wizard, but you should be able to work a Powerpoint and set up Blackboard. It's just frustrating because it's not like I'm in a position where I can change things very dramatically. (Sorry for the OT rant, this semester has been really frustrating.)

All that said, I don't dump any of that ire back on my students, who have actually been pretty great this semester. If one of them pulls the "Can we skip the final?" line, I usually just reply, "Sure, if you'd like to fail the class, that's certainly an option."

[Rageaholic]

Meh, people take the joking too seriously. Disrespectful? Where are we, in the vatican? At a funeral? More likely it's someone who couldn't get a real job in their field and is now stuck with students, and they're being pissy.

At first I thought they were joking, but eventually I realized that the ones in the particular class were dead serious. I find it grating because I hear the same line from them every class and they take up more time arguing with the professor. I do agree that college is a general pain in the ass, full of things to rant and bitch about, but in this case, it's the students who are being annoying.

[Iseeyouthere]

Most students bitch about anything when they get the chance.

98% of my Year 12 English class bitched about having to read a novel.

[jackfaire]

God yes and not just annoying when they don't read the syllabus either.

In my college classes were listed as either lecture or discussion to give you an idea of the style of that professor. If you just wanted to sit in class and have a bunch of data thrown at you to memorize and reguritate fine take a lecture class.

Me I was there to learn so where possible I took discussion classes. I enrolled in Soc 101. Me and one other student engaged in discussion with the teacher about the topic seeking to further our knowledge and broaden our education in this topic.

The rest of the class was continually whining that the teacher wasn't just lecturing.

Students like that are going to make it fun when I go back this Spring.

(side note I know I have said I don't need a degree for what I do but screw it I like psychology so I am going back to work on my psych degree if I ever do anything with it cool but I am sick of the "I am a college grad therefore smarter and better than you" that I get from some dumbasses who think the Sunday Funny Pages are the height of literature.

[DrFaroohk]

A lot of the bitching is learned behavior. When you grow up listening to people whine and complain about how someone told a joke or someone god forbid is wearing a hat INDOORS!!!!!!111!!111!!...don't you have anything better to do?...but it sends the message that being a whiny asshole actually gets you places.