Am i gigantic douche?

[dknightx]

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OP, a question:

I had heart surgery when I was in college. Missed a full week of classes, including one exam. I was allowed to make it up the following week.

I would have to drop this exam if you were my prof at the time -- simply because I was dumb enough be born with Wolff Parkinson White Syndrome. And then I would have to add weight to the final exam, simply because my heart-forming abilities as a fetus just sucked.

Just wanted to be clear on that.

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i'm not here to make assumptions, but i had the same condition, and my surgery took a few hours and i was able to return to class after missing a single day. Oh yeah, I could schedule the day that I had my surgery, imagine that. (For those who don't know what this condition is, the surgery shouldn't even be called "heart surgery", its very non-intrusive and doesnt require any open cuts on the chest. Oh yeah, same condition that joey harrington had, and he was ready to play that sunday)

Now, forgive me if your condition was one of the few rare cases where it was life threatening, or you got the surgery 20 years ago.

[DerKommisar]

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OK, for the previous test I gave i had 5 excuses.

DerKommisar, I am in the following situation, can I take a make up test:
1.) I have to be out of town for an awards banquet the night before, and it'd be a really long drive back to make it at a reasonable hour.
2.) My grandfather died.
3.) I have to go to the doctor.
4.) I am sick.
5.) I am in the emergency room.

1.) No. Your final does replace your lowest test grade, though, so it shouldn't be a problem.
2.) No. Your final does replace your lowest test grade, though, so it shouldn't be a problem.
3.) Can we make arrangements so that you can take it the sometime earlier in the day? Yes, ok, great.
4.) No. Your final does replace your lowest test grade, though, so it shouldn't be a problem.
5.) No. Your final does replace your lowest test grade, though, so it shouldn't be a problem.


Or, should I have arranged a time when for the other four when we could all meet at night , cause I have nothing else to do with my time? What if they're not all able to meet at that time? What if one of them has chemistry at that time? Or they're still ill? then what?

Please note, if they're hot, they could have an option to take an oral exam.

Also, Final exam circumstances are of course different.

Another thing, should I be accepting late homework?

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Now you're just being a [censored].

If you don't like your job quit. If you're a college professor you're obviously smart enough to get many other jobs. Or did you flim flam your way into this one?

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I don't hate my job, I love it. But, I think people on here need to realize that when people decide what job they choose, they should be doing it for their own personal benefits. That is, are they interested in the work itself, and does it pay them the amount of $$ necessary to live the lifestyle they want. When I go into class, I am well prepared, and deliver a well thought out, organized lecture. I create tests and homework assignments that challenge my students and illustrate the points of the topics. That's my job. I take pride in the fact that I do my job well, not what I am doing for society. I do not believe teachers should be paid more, as that should be determined by supply and demand. And I also find it surprising though that people expect teachers to bend over backwards and spend their free time because of a hardship in the lives of someone that is not a friend or family. There was a post on here one time about how a person went into a store right around closing time, and the clerk said, we don't accept credit cards here, and by the time the OP went back to get his wallet and return into the store, the clerk had closed the door on him. Ray Zee chimed in and said, maybe the clerk had a long day and wanted to go home. My job is just my job. It does not define who I am, it does not give me self worth. I help people in my community, I volunteer for charitable organizations. I recommend to all of my students they do the same.

My general philosophy on grades is that by the end of the semester, by the time all is said and done, A student will define themselves as an A student, a b student the same, ... And in the end, it won't change any of their lives.

[junglewarfare]

For everyone saying that the professor's policy is fair because he drops the lowest test grade, that is just not correct. A student who has to attend a funeral or is in the hospital for something serious will be at a disadvantage if they miss a test and don't get to drop a low test score. Not allowing that student to make up the test will hurt the students grade, and is it fair for a student to get a worse grade in a class because of a family tragedy? Of course not. It is even worse if the class is curved.

Again, if something legitimately serious happened, a student would be able to get the dean to overrule this ridiculous policy.

[DerKommisar]

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Just curious, have you ever missed one of your classes?

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As a student, all of the time. I even took make-up tests. And some of them I may have had lame excuses for. But those were in gigantic lecture classes with coordinated make-ups. I then had a HS friend who passed away. I contacted my teacher if she would allow me to take a make up, she said yes. If she had said no, I would have accepted her decision, and replaced my final with that grade.

As an instructor, rarely. If I did I had someone cover for me. I had earned sick time, and therefore was still paid. I paid the people who covered for me, or I have returned the favor.

[DerKommisar]

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Again, if something legitimately serious happened, a student would be able to get the dean to overrule this ridiculous policy.

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What are your qualifications for making this statement?

(Please note, many posters have said it is a standard policy for 95% of their classes.)

[Bartman387]

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Just curious, have you ever missed one of your classes?

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As an instructor, rarely. If I did I had someone cover for me. I had earned sick time, and therefore was still paid. I paid the people who covered for me, or I have returned the favor.

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I was uninterested if you missed as a student.

As for you missing as a prof, I took your class to be taught by you. Not the replacement. Therefore I am getting screwed out of the education I paid for. Or what if it was a test day that you missed and your replacement was unable to answer a question I had regarding something on the test? Again, I am not getting what I paid for as a student.

I find it interesting that you feel you can miss, but under no circumstances can a student.

[junglewarfare]

Do you realize that you could have avoided this whole argument if you just said "I take a very hard line towards students asking for making up exams. I won't allow it for a student unless something extreme happens like a death in the family or the student is severely sick or in the hospital."

Your comments like "Why should I have to make another test for the students?" made you sound like a really bad professor and douchebag.

[goofyballer]

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The OP is not a douche, imho. What's the over/under on the percentage of people posting in this thread that are college students that cut classes as much as they can? I put it at 85%.

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This is exactly what I was thinking. OP's policy seems more than fair. What many people don't seem to be taking into account is that most college students are gigantic douches themselves. If a professor provided make-up exams to anyone with a reasonable excuse, he'd just end up with a bunch of assholes putting off their exams any time they had a runny nose, or didn't feel like studying, or were still too hung over from last night's party. I'd put the ratio of people with lame excuses vs those with a genuine need at somewhere around 9:1. College students are lazy as [censored] and will take advantage of any leeway you give them. His policy already allows for someone to miss one test without serious consequences. If you miss more than one in a semester, you deserve an incomplete, whether it's your fault or not.

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You're a moron. I'm one of those lazy students, and any teacher with half a brain that demands proof in these kinds of situations instead of blindly trusting any student that makes up a reason for not being able to make a test can put an end to people like me that blow off tests expecting to make them up later. Mermade's policy was good, and apparently works judging by her results.

DerKo, go read that post, adopt that policy, and stfu. You're a douche. The fact that you're making all these analogies to being an aerobics instructor or whatever makes it really sound like you don't care about your students, and if that's the case, then don't be a [censored] teacher.

Situations outside of a student's control should not force them to suddenly have the vast majority of their final grade (even more so than usual) riding on the final exam.

When I'm a programmer a couple years from now and I'm expected to work overtime on a project (without extra pay) as it approaches its deadline, likely because of bugs that I didn't even code, I'm not going to bitch and moan about it, I'm going to do my [censored] job.

My English teacher just cancelled class for the last four days because her mom is having health problems...but I guess you would keep teaching in that spot, right?

[DerKommisar]

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Do you realize that you could have avoided this whole argument if you just said "I take a very hard line towards students asking for making up exams. I won't allow it for a student unless something extreme happens like a death in the family or the student is severely sick or in the hospital."


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And I think I addressed why this is hard to do. I wouldn't mind having a policy of "you will be given a make up in the event of a death of a parent or sibling." I'm confident I would still have a few students lie. And anyone on here knows at least a few people who will lie at any extent.

I addressed the hospital issue. The problem here is that a lot of hospitals will simply say that a person was a patient there. That's it. That makes everything illness equal.

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Your comments like "Why should I have to make another test for the students?" made you sound like a really bad professor and douchebag.

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My problem isn't in accomodating 1 or 2 students with a serious need each semester. Its in accomodating 5 or 6 every time I give a test.

BTW,

I bet if you were in my class you'd like me... (How many of your profs play party poker?) [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[eggzz]

I had a professor that had this same policy at my school. I was involved in a one car accident in which the driver was thrown from the car, and paralyzed from the waist down permanently. The car flew in the air about 50 feet, landed and flipped around five times. He was going too fast, took a turn, the car wouldn't take the turn....

So I was treated and released and banged up pretty bad. Couldn't get out of bed for a day, came to class on Wednesday on crutches, had the discharge papers from the ER. I missed the test that was on Monday, crash was on Sunday.

Not only would the professor not let me make up the test, he looked at my test scores from my two previous exams, D and C- and said something to the effect, "well you haven't shown much on the first two tests, do you really think you're going to ace the one you missed?"

Wow. Took me a long time before I ever met a bigger douche than that professor of Macroecomomics at Kent State U.

So to the OP, don't be like this guy. All rules were made to be broken, when the occasion and the need arises.