More email from "Strait A"
This time "Strait-A Student" missed an exam:
It was not about whether I could or could not take the exam physically, it was about mentally, I didn't get to study at all. My mom slept in my room since Sun night till Thurs morning, she took days off work to stay with me and to drive me to school so I could give notes to my teachers who in contrast showed a lot more understanding to my situation, and those classes are much higher level than this one. You know, if anything really? what could it possibly change from taking an exam on Fri or Mon??????? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, IT'S SIMPLY YOUR INSENSITIVE PRINCIPLE. I'm a hard working student, always was, everyone that knows me will tell you that for me school comes FIRST. The straight A's don't fall from the sky, they were earned with my health, tears, sleepless nights, and deep dedication to school, and the last time I left my home on Sat or Sun was a weekend bfore school started, I spend those days from morning to night studying. I dont deserve such disrespect!!!I will be ready to take this exam on Monday, I will ask you one more time to please make an arrangement for Mon or whenever available. I will not take a zero for this nor that I will drop this coarse, I know that any doctor or any school authority will be on my side, all my reasons are valid, and exam timing i asked for is reasonable. Please!! I just want to take the exam, let's not make this a problem.
A make-up exam time was set. She didn't make it. So this:
I told you I would be ready to take it any time next week. This whole week, starting sunday I was sick, only yesterday (thursday) my temperature finally stabilized to normal. My parents didn't take me to emergency room as a joke, for 4 days my temperature was around 101F-103.2F - at that temp.: shivering, cold sweat, hallucinations, nausea, headache and where you just lay on a bed with closed eyes and any noise or touch makes you feel like your head will explode. At this high temp. people die from brain hemorrhage. My whole body was in pain, I coudn't move sunday at all, Mon. and Tues. my mom gave me a ton of pain killers just so I could get up, because I NEEDED to go to school, so she drove me. My doctor specifically told me to stay in bed, relax, and sleep as much as possible. Some classses like Mon and Tues I just had to be there to at least sign in, then teachers and profs said I could go, some even e-mailed me their lectures just so I didnt have to stay understanding the seriousness of the symptoms. My plan to study for exam 3 was Sat, Sun and throughout the week. Sat it took me all day to learn ch4, the rest was put off for later time, but I got sick, tried studying Sun but with my condition I couldnt even hold the book in front of me. I remember reading, but pain and discomfort of fever was so overwhelming that I didn't remember or understand what I read. Anyways, I don't know if it's difficult for you to picture my condition, I don't know what you want me to do to prove this to you, but this is the fact. I feel like you treat me like I am some slack off student, that doean't want to take the exam. I didn't earn straight A's and got all academic awards to be treated this way, all I asked for was the weekend to catch up on my studies for this exam.
Makes you feel like your head will explode.
posted by writer @ 3:15 PM
15 Comments:
Sad, but in my experience, the whiners always get their way. I always wonder during finals week at the people who aren't stressed at all, who are taking two-hour cigarette breaks even though their papers were due two days ago. They've always "worked something out" with their professors, or they're convinced they will. And I guess they do, because they're always back for the next quarter, GPAs unblemished.
This is painful to read for so many reasons - primarily the utter lack of a sense of propriety on the writer's part. There's no respect for the educator, no common sense in knowing what details to leave out, and clearly a grand feeling of entitlement. Ouch. This pretty well reinforces my shame at being part of this generation of undergrads.
Ugh, what a little brat. Your site rocks, though. Highlights from MY teaching career: One guy told me I couldn't give him a D on his paper because he was a Dean's List student, to which I replied "then why are you writing me D papers?" Then he showed up telling me he finally had a good excuse for missing class, which was being pulled over for a DUI. I told him that if he had a DUI under 21 years of age he had much bigger problems than passing my class. Also, an older woman came to my office hours to dispute an F on a paper, telling me she had much more life experience than I did. When I said, gently, that I respected that but life experience wasn't what was being evaluated on this paper, she called me "a stuck-up little bitch." Oh, wait, and did I mention the first-year graduate student who said that I obviously didn't understand the brilliance of his paper? For this I trained 6 years in grad school and 6 more on the tenure track?
I think all the other posters have really missed the point here and we need WFAA on this right away. This is right up there with Abu Grabe..forcing these girls to come to class and take tests while smack in the middle of their period? The inhumanity of men these private schools get away with. Disgusting.
It's the ignorant grammar of these e-mails and such that really bothers me.
If I was sending e-mail to a teacher in my program, I might spellcheck it first and maybe see if my sentences were well-formed. There's nothing to compare with the impression that near-illiterate writing makes on a professor when telling them how smart you are and deserving of an 'A' grade.
Oh, didn't you get the memo? Just because you made straight As in high school or introductory freshman courses means you deserve them later, even if your work ethic or work quality doesn't improve.
And if you're paying big money for an education, you should get the grades you deserve..right?
WHEN DID PEOPLE STOP RESPECTING PROFESSORS? Wasn't there a day when students stood up to acknowledge the prof's arrival to class? It's almost as if no one needs to learn anything anymore - everyone is self-taught and the professor's job is to validate what students already know. It doesn't mean you actually have to listen to them, take their criticism, or aim to make them proud of you. So many students see professors as service workers, no different from the person at the customer service desk in Fry's. You pay their salary, they do what you and your parents want. Tuition money --> ??? --> A --> Networking --> Job --> Profit!!!
What goes into that ??? Hard work and respect, or goofing off, partying, doing half-assed work and getting your grade changed at the end of the semester?
Ah yes, I grew up in Plano and graduated from high school there (2004). A few names came to mind when I read this post. I can only imagine what you put up with, as I went to high school with all these Brad and Ashley (leigh, lee, or any other pretentious spelling one can come up with)characters.
Did you give her extra credit for writing such wonderful and moving error-free essays disguised as excuses?
Agh. My head was hurting after the first sentence. I can't believe the kind of crap people push to get their way. What a tantrum. There's so much I could rant on with that person, and in fact I'm thinking if I had them in a class I would have given them a nice slap. It's a good thing I'm not a teacher, I guess. It's people like that who make me ashamed of my generation as well. No class, no respect, no cares, and no character.
I don't buy sob stories for an instant. Maybe that "strait A" student should write for soap operas because the heartstrings are definitely not tugging.
It pains me to read this. Really. I can empathize completely because, of course, I've had my fair share of these kinds of email messages and this kind of attitude, too. My first year at my private university I had a student call me a bitch in the class when I handed back his paper--a B (he was an "all A student," of course)--and then he wrote me an email asking, "What gives you the right to evaluate me?" Eventually he went to the Chair who told him to spell and grammar check email before contacting administrators.
Why do we put up with this crap?!
You need to stop posting these, or I'll split a gut from laughing.
The student hypochondriac is a recognizable type. Usually they self-diagnose their "ailments"--I had one extreme case last semester who diagnosed herself with diabetes, MS, kidney disease, and several others, all within a couple of weeks.
But she's doing so well for somone for whom English is obviously their second language!
When will students (or people in general) understand taht they will nevr be taking seriusly if tehy cant compose a grammatatically corect sentense? Jeez.
Your comments make me smile. It's so nice to feel validated. Thank you!
This reminds me of something a parent told me once about their child, in an effort to get me to change a grade or cut him some slack he did NOT deserve:
"He dyslexia."
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