WHy do some college students who have like D's and F's always come to their profs with a sob story?
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I hear you on this one. One problem is that some students have learned to get their way through emotional manipulation. This isn't just something they do in the classroom, but outside as well.
Many profs. tend to give withdrawls instead of F's in order to avoid conflicts and arguements. If a student makes a complaint, about the instructor or petitions for a grade change, it always ends up involving more work and hassle for the instructor.
Another factor for some instructors may be the reputation factor. "A-holes" don't fill classes. If you happen to be a contracted part-time instructor...well a bad rep. will mean no classes and no classes = no money. This can be a factor even for full-time instructors.
In this day and age students are more likely to perceive themselves as consumers who are paying to receive a "product", or "service". As customers they may believe that because they have paid for something that they should receive something...irregardless of the work they put in, or didn't put in.
Well those are my thoughts on the matter.
Apart from those who honestly tried, or had some sort of crisis, the rest play on professors' guilt and compassion. I think few people would like to be the reason (or so they are made to believe) why somebody's life was ruined (even though the people themselves messed up).
I know a lot of profs will ease up on students who are taking a class just to meet some requirement (like history), but a lot won't because they feel that by allowing a student to pass or withdraw would be doing a disservice to others.
It's called entitlement attitude. Used to teach in university and my husband still does. There are some students who were given a ride in HS and now expect the same at college.
For the most part, professors are incensed with the idea of giving anything away. If the student hasn't done the work (I had one who did nothing all semester when the syllabus said points would be taken off for every day it was late, and brought me everything during finals week by which time the work had devalued in points as to be worthless), professors aren't going to budge for them. Most professors have been around long enough to have seen it all. Plus, they have too many students to teach to be bothered to cave in to one who couldn't be bothered attending class, turning in work or participating in the few classes they may have attended.
Yes, it's pretty ridiculous. Especially since most of them wait until right before grades are due to start asking for extra credit or extensions on far-overdue projects.
I worked for a great prof last semester. He wrote into the syllabus that any begging for grades that were not earned would result in the loss of one letter grade - final grade of B becomes C, and so on. It worked great.
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