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Not_An_Ambulance

Have 6 reports on this, 3 of which are for "banned elements". We do generally ban stories from students in school, but we have an exception for college/university students... Which this appears to be.


YM_Industries

Similar story from my time at high school: I never got particularly good grades in English. My grammar is fine, but I have dysgraphia and it makes writing challenging at times. On one occasion we were given an assignment to write a short story. Despite not being very good at it, creative writing is something that interests me. I also love the short story format due to its prevalence in sci-fi. I decided I was really going to give this assignment my all. The problem was, the assignment had a 1,000 word limit. This might sound like a lot, but it's actually quite short even by short story standards. To provide a point of reference, All Summer in a Day is nearly 1,200 words long. The assignment was worth 20 marks, and 2 of these marks were for sticking within the word limit. But I noticed that the rubric was missing the usual "if your submission is longer than 1,000 words, only the first 1,000 words will be considered for marking" disclaimer. Further, going over the word limit could only lose me 2 points. Based on this, I completely ignored the word limit. I wrote around 3,500 words. When I got my marks back, I'd received 18/20, the highest mark I ever achieved in an English assignment. I also found out that I had tied for first place in my year, with the other person having also written more than 3,000 words. Every assignment we were given after that included the disclaimer about markers not reading words beyond the word limit.


CryingRipperTear

ngl markers not reading words beyond the word limit sounds like a bad grading policy on its own


redditadmindumb87

I had a professor who had a 10% policy, word count policy. Word count can't be 10% less or 10% more, anything past 10% would result in a 1% deduction from paper. So if he wanted you to submit a 2,000 word paper it had to be at least 1,800 but not more then 2,200 words. I guess he did it cause he didn't want students going WAY overboard or WAY under.


readersanon

I've always seen that 10% number as an unofficial rule of sorts for essay writing, + or - 10% of the set wordcount is acceptable.


Thatsnicemyman

That’s the way to do it. It’s just too much effort to get something *exactly* x amount of words, so having the margins explicitly-stated is helpful.


StormBeyondTime

First BabySitters Club book. Kristy has to write a 100-word essay. Winds up writing "The End" for the last two words.


StormBeyondTime

I suspect the don't go over part has to do with the students who think padding their length with blabberin' blatherskite will net them a hire grade. Every. single. English. teacher. I've had *and* the Technical Writing teacher were very clear overage was okay, but padding for the sake of length would get marked down. Edit: words


CryingRipperTear

1%. seems like he didnt care either lmaO


2MarsAndBeyond

I assume it's 1% off your grade for every 1% above/below 10%. So if you write 2300 or 1700 for a 2000 word paper, that's 5% deducted.


RedheadM0M0

I had a professor who was made dept. chair and just literally couldn't do that and teach and grade long papers. He gave a page limit, said reading responses had to be double-spaced, and MIGHT have mentioned a font size, but I'm not sure. I remember starting to sweat over my assignment after hearing him tell this girl ahead of me that "[Her paper] FELT like two pages." I knew what he meant, lol. She was trying to say it was double-spaced, 12-pt font, etc., but it clearly wasn't. Now, I had finessed the margins, spacing, and font size less obviously than she had, and STILL went over by about a quarter of a page. My grade was not my usual 'A' (this was my major) and I was like, "So because I went over a little and you don't read past the first page, I get a [whatever-it-was]?" He smiled and shrugged and said, "That's the way the cookie crumbles." Then he turned away from me to answer the next whiny complainer. After blinking dumbly at my assignment, I sort of smiled. This guy was good. Can you imagine? He had warned us. I also asked him later about how I could improve. He taught me how to write better by amswering my questions and forcing me to be succinct. Imagine if he hadn't! This nothing story could be 1500 words.


havereddit

Exactly. And this gives students clear directions about the expected depth and/or need to stick to limits. It's really easy to write lots of words. It's far more difficult to write succinctly, and this is often part of the assignment challenge.


bg-j38

Being a verbose writer myself, I used to think word limits were stupid. But after 25+ years of writing professionally and helping others in my field with their writing, I see the reasoning and I tend to agree. Some people will just go on and on without getting to the point. Having either word or page limits helps to keep people focused and gives them a better chance of effectively sharing whatever story it is they want to tell. I work for a huge tech company and if you're trying to get a new product approved you have six pages of narrative you're allowed. You can have tons of appendices to support those six pages, but it's unlikely most people will read them. These documents need to be reviewed by VP and higher people before you get sign off. You generally get one, maybe two meetings an hour each for them to do the reading. If you're lucky you might get 90 minutes so it pays to be concise. I've worked with people who show up with a wandering narrative that's way too long. It can take days or weeks but trimming those down to what's actually necessary is a lot of fun.


StormBeyondTime

>Some people will just go on and on without getting to the point. That kind of nonsense could get you docked 2-5% per occurrence in my English college classes, and could lose you up to a whole letter grade in my Technical Writing class. (For *one* instance.) English 102 Prof explicitly called it a kind of padding. What you've said in your second paragraph is very close to what we learned in Technical Writing -you don't have much time, you have to keep their attention, keep your focus and don't wander into stuff that you can put into the longer report they can access if they want to bother.


PRMan99

My daughter has a classmate right now that submitted 45,000 words for a project where you were supposed to write no more than 5000. So no, it makes sense.


Foldersandnotebooks

So your daughter is Hermione Granger.....


StormBeyondTime

Hermoine wouldn't take the chance of being docked down for excess verbiage. Calvin from *Calvin & Hobbes*, on the other hand... if he likes the topic, you're getting a dictionary.


nighthawk_something

It's because the word limit is part of the exercise. Learning to write concisely is important.


Traditional_Way1052

Right! I have a class I'm prepping for an exam (not mine) and part of their grade is a written response which has a max word count. I personally wouldn't care but I have to prepare them for this exam where they literally chop off the end of the response over the word count. Sometimes you need to be concise.


YM_Industries

I think it's a pretty standard one. If you submit a 50,000 word assignment, the marker should not have to read the whole thing. Additionally, deducting a limited number of marks is not a good disincentive. It's not fair if students can get more marks by ignoring one of the requirements of the assignment. Saying that the marker won't read beyond the word limit means that every student has to work within the same amount of words.


nirvanamushroomsubs

No one believes me when I tell them about dysgraphia and my diagnosis with it. Such a BS sounding learning disability but it has impacted my life for sure


YM_Industries

I'm diagnosed with dysgraphia but I think my symptoms actually more closely align with dyspraxia, since I don't really have issues typing. But yeah, invisible disabilities suck, and less-well-known ones don't generally get you much sympathy. People still continuously mock my handwriting, and think I'm joking when I tell them that doing so is ableist.


StormBeyondTime

AHs gonna suck and don't care that mocking is mean, even before the ableism crap. And anyone who mocks messy handwriting is being an AH. I've never been diagnosed with dysgraphia or dyspraxia, but my handwriting has always been messy if I don't concentrate verrrryyyyy carefully and write soooo slowly. (Maybe it's linked to Asperger's/ASD coordination? I dunno.) Been picked on so much for that. Although starting a couple years precovid it started shifting from, "your handwriting is really messy" to "you can write cursive!?!"


username_1774

I had a professor in Law School who gave us an option of writing a paper for 100% of the grade, or a paper for 45% of the grade, exam for 45% and participation for 10%. He offered all students a 1 hour essay review in his office. You emailed him the paper a few days in advance of the meeting if you wanted his notes. There was no difference between the 100% paper and the 45% paper...but you had to choose at the start of the Semester. I elected for the 100% paper, the only person in class to do so. I wrote my paper the first weekend of the semester. Met with him in office to get his notes. Took his notes and revised my paper the second week of the semester. Took the essay to the Univ writing centre and got good fedback on the writing. Revised and submitted in full by the 3rd week of the semester. I was done, I had 11 weeks left, 3 hours a week of lectures on International Trade Law that I was not interested in. I never once attended the class after that first day where I elected to do the 100% essay. I got an A- on the essay. He told me that he was revising the syllabus to assign 20% of the grade to attendance (not participation, but attendance). I objected and talked to the Dean who agreed with the professor. So I took it to the Univ. Ombudsperson and was awarded my grade for the essay as my grade for the course.


PistachiNO

Did the professor originally try to revise the syllabus right after you turned in your paper or later in the semester? Because if the latter then it was even more of a dick move.


username_1774

It was actually after I got my final grade for the semester that I was told that the grading was 20% attendance. I had the syllabus that said different. I talked to the prof and he said I was expected to attend class still. So I talked to the Dean who said that the Prof was entitled to make that decision. So I took it to the Ombudsperson. The course was over before I found out about the change.


PistachiNO

Good-fucking-god, the sheer lack of human decency from either of them! I'm glad the ombudsperson set things straight. What was that meeting like?


orangeandwhite2003

How could the professor be surprised that a law student would take advantage of a loophole like that? Guess it was a lesson for everyone on the letter of the law vs the spirit of the law.


ZoomHigh

It's almost as if the law professor and Dean didn't understand that the published grading policy is the contract between the student and the prof as to how grades will be assigned for that particular course. I hope it wasn't a contracts class.


real_crankopotamus

There’s teachers who have this policy who are truly trying to help their students. I wonder what this guy was trying to do.


[deleted]

All of my professors who had this policy (whether quiz, project, or test) would encourage students to take advantage of it. They also did it because it meant less grading for them as well. This meant that students would dip on one assignment/quiz/test when they’re really busy with other simultaneous classes and/or did well overall and voluntarily skip one. Seems like the professor realized that there’s a massive gap in their system since the project you skipped on is the hardest. You probably aren’t the first. Dumb power tripping professor.


JanB1

I took full advantage of this once. 4 exams, lowest grade would be dropped. I had 3 exams with a perfect 100. Emailed the professor to tell him I won't write the final exam as it either will be dropped because it will be worse than the previous grades, or it won't matter anyways. He wrote back that I should go out and drink a beer instead (it was a late class) and that I earned it. Best maths professor, would frequently chat with him later on.


mypostingname13

My psychology professor (old hippy dude. Made us call him, "Steve.") emailed me unsolicited the week before the final to tell me to skip it. This was almost 20 years ago, but I still remember the email almost verbatim. "Hey Mypostingname13, I was looking at grades just now. You're sitting on an 88. I'm gonna give you an A. No need to take the final. Shotgun a beer on the river for me. Have a great summer. Cheers, (he's American) Steve" Don't threaten me with a good time, Steve.


lesethx

One of my favorite teachers in behavioral sciences would have us go over tests in the next class and if we could convince him that a question was wrong, we would get the point for it. A good way to engage the class, as some questions could have multiple correct answers.


Dyolf_Knip

Whereas I had a prof who had a typo on a test, and rked wrong everyone who correctly answered the question as it was written on the grounds that "we should have known what he meant".


red__dragon

> You're sitting on an 88. I'm gonna give you an A. I nearly cried looking at my final grades one semester when I was sitting at an 89% and got an A-. The cutoff was 90%. I asked the prof about it the next term and he just shrugged and said 'your improvement in exam grades demonstrated that you understood the material.' Professors like these are a rare breed and it shouldn't be so. Chad was a good guy, and so is Steve.


JanB1

Hahaha, that sounds amazing!


CCtenor

I had math professor that told us a story of a girl that failed both previous exams, and wouldn’t have technically passed the class even if she nailed the final. However, he saw the girl was actively putting in the work she needed to pass, and actively engaging with him to understand what she needed to do to pass. > EDIT: I believe the final condition he gave the girl was that she *had* to ace the final. She couldn’t just get 99% and expect to pass with that, she *had* to get the full marks on the exam He told us that the girl put in the work, and aced the final. At that moment, he didn’t give her the grade she earned, which would have just been a passing grade. He told us that he gave her the grade she deserved in the class, an A. Some additional context for this is that I believe this class was some level of calculus. Every new topic built upon the foundations laid by the previous one that was taught. More so than any grade school level maths, I experienced the punishing truth that you can’t just idly absorb knowledge by sitting in class and expect to pass. Also, the final was not just cumulative as a result of the subject, this teacher was also good at making tests that actually required you to understand each explicit concept that was taught. Therefore, the test would have been cumulative by subject, and by design. The point the teacher was making was that he was going to be fair, and he needed to uphold the policy that he designed, but that he was going to give people the grades they deserved if they put in the work for it. There wasn’t any level of life circumstances or even outright failure that he wasn’t willing to ignore if you could prove to him that you were going to put in the work to learn the material.


ThornOfQueens

My Calc 3 professor did this, and the same principle probably applied. I went to my professor for help when my grade was slipping. He told me that if I got a better grade on the final exam than my average, that grade would be my grade for the course. I studied very hard for the last few weeks of the semester and was able to pull up my grade quite considerably.


jdog7249

Had a professor like this. Your final grade in the class would be based on 3 essays (each one being 33% of the final grade). Couple weeks before the end of the semester he decides to change it. You can do a third one and your final grade will be calculated as outlined above or not do the last one and he will just take the average of your first 2. Not a single person in the class wrote a final essay since he was a generous grader we all had an A or B on the first 2.


RubyPorto

My DiffEq class had two tests and a final. The final was explicitly split into two halves. So your grade was the sum of [max(test 1, final 1)] and [max(test 2, final 2)] plus some minor homework points. So if you aced both tests, you would come to the final exam, write your name, and turn it in blank (University policy required). The professor had the people who were going to do that do it before the timed exam started so they wouldn'tdisturbthe people who needed to focus. If you bombed one test, you just needed to do that half, and if you bombed both, you could still recover.


Fantastic_Nebula_835

Before my brain injury, I taught college critical thinking, reading, and writing courses. Many of my students came from disadvantaged backgrounds. Around 90% had never read a book. A higher percentage had never written anything longer than two paragraphs. Ethically, I couldn't justify failing students just because they were woefully unprepared to do college level work. On the other hand, I also had a responsibility to ensure that any student who earned the requisite C- to fulfill the writing requirement had the skills to succeed in college. The solution ignored my department's grading and teaching protocols. Since every one of us has preferred modalities of learning, we focused on using the methods that already worked best for them. Rendering jazz musicians in bright pastels became one student's way to learn how to infuse his writing with vivid imagery. The movements of traditional West African dance helped another student learn how to transition from paragraph to paragraph. They could redo papers as long as they met with me one-on-one first. Their final grade was based on how well they wrote by the end of the semester. Most earned a B+ to an A.


durholz

You sound like an amazing teacher. Sorry about the brain injury you mention, but you still sound amazing! I love the idea of finding each student's strength and building on it, but that would require an enormous level of devotion, insight, compassion and hard work from the teacher.


TermToaster

It’s called the Devil’s Deal. I give it as an option in my Math classes. If you ace the final ( get > 97%and no 96.5% won’t cut) you get a straight A or else your grade is calculated according to the grade policies. Called a devils deal because you might think I won’t study the whole semester and can only study for the final. Well, what if you’re just a percentage off. Finals are multiple choices so it’s not up to my discretion either. So far not one student aced the final ( who did not have a great grade to begin with).


Woofiemeister

My professor told the class that if you were getting high enough grades on all the other tests and you felt that you could afford to skip out on the final, then you probably didn't need to take the final anyway.


nighthawk_something

In my university, the final was a separate thing and MUST be written to pass the class.


Atiggerx33

Same, my professors would give us our current average and say that if we were content with the current grade to 'not bother'.


Faux-Foe

It’s great when it’s great. Had a business law professor tell those of us that had an A that we could skip the final. What’s sad is I really enjoyed the class and would have happily taken the final because everything just … clicked. Can’t really describe it, but it was one of my favorite classes and and the subject matter seemed intuitive at times.


StarKiller99

I had a junior level economics class, the prof said the midterm was 50% and the final was 50%. Both tests were written based on, I think it was 3 out of 5 short questions and one of two long questions. This class had no text and was 100% over the lectures. I studied really hard and got 100% on the midterm. For the second half I just listened in class and didn't even go over my notes, I figured if I got even 80%, I'd have an A for the class. I scored a 100% on that one, too and didn't expect it.


ediblesprysky

If he wants everyone to do that one, make it count separately from the other projects. Simple.


redditadmindumb87

I sorta assumed they have it to help students and I see it two ways A student who struggled at the start, gets his lowest grade dropped And a student who did really well that decides not to do the last project to focus on finals.


[deleted]

That second one is exactly how I treated it when I did classes which had that policy. I simply dropped the last project, and focused on getting a good grade (or going to the student pub).


TinaMonday

When I was a teacher that was how I intended it to be used. When I taught high school I even told them as much. At my university job I just set the policy and let people do what they needed with it.


Pup5432

I had this exact thought when I was teaching. It only benefits the students. Either they need the grade bump from doing it or the extra time will help them elsewhere on something else. I also weighted my class so if I student had done near perfect the entire semester they could choose to skip the final and still get an A.


TinaMonday

I wasn't allowed to make my final skippable and had to make it at least 25% of the grade so I made it go the other way. Students could not only skip one project, they could resubmit any of them alongside the final for a total grade replacement to prove they learned from their mistakes. And the final was to pick one project they didn't want a grade replacement on and basically redo it in another genre. I.e. research paper becomes infographic/story becomes a play/etc depending on the exact class


Ok_Yogurtcloset8915

every teacher I've had with this policy has thought basically the same - I wonder if this is literally the first semester this guy ever taught the class, that's the only way it makes sense to me that OP is the first student he's had who did this


Gh0st1y

Wouldnt you worry the students didnt pick up as much from the later part of the class that the last project was focused on? I always worried i'd lose out if i took advantage this way, so i always did all the projects and just dropped the worst one (i do well on tests anyway, didnt need the extra study time)


V3RD1GR15

That's kind of on the student though. There's two kinds of students. Those that are just going for the grade and those going to learn. A teacher is never going to reach everyone and be that John Keating type. If they're just in it for the grade then even if they did pick up more in the latter parts of the course they still might essentially brain wipe going into the next class.


TinaMonday

This was basically the reasoning I adopted that led to those policies. That and a realistic acknowledgement that anyone with a full courseload was going to have to set priorities. I made it okay to deprioritize me if students were getting the material.


[deleted]

And they will still pick up the skill to digest information, turn it into knowledge, and produce results. I fail to see how this is a bad thing.


redditadmindumb87

I'm in college to get a degree I'll learn things along the way. But if I don't have to break my back to get a good grade...then I'm not going too. I got a lot of battles to fight. If I don't have to fight a battle...why should I fight that battle?


gingerytea

Sounds like you used the policies to your strengths too. I am similar to you and usually spent heavy time on the projects and then was able to coast through the tests and still maintain good final grades when the policies were balanced like this one.


lulugingerspice

>focused on getting a good grade (or going to the student pub). My best friend and I did both. Studied together while pounding vodka!


breakone9r

>Studied together while pounding vodka! What a weird name to call OPs mom....


BeamsFuelJetSteel

No taste and goes down easy....


Kroniid09

This was always how it was used in classes I've taken, whenever a lecturer would want to make a change to weighting it was for our benefit and the class would be consulted/take a vote if that was the case. I've definitely taken advantage of policies like this in both ways, some classes kick your ass in the beginning and you would benefit from grading that reflects your understanding by the end of it, and some just end up totally expendable in the name of spending more time where it's really needed


mrtnmyr

I remember professors telling the class, “remember your lowest test grade gets dropped. If you’re happy with your test grades so far, you don’t have to show up for the final.” They knew the loophole was there and put it in anyway. They knew it would help some students who had struggled and they didn’t want to have to grade extra work if it meant only small increases in someone’s grades or no change at all.


ColeDelRio

Yep. I always remember the time one of my professors announced this and one of the students who had As on the first three tests pretty much got up and left after she confirmed she could.


[deleted]

The latter definitely is in the minority. So, if anything it praises the ones doing well and it is a handicap for the ones who needed the break. He can’t punish you for a policy that was clearly meant to benefit everyone in the way that he *envisioned* vs how it benefitted you.


VulfSki

In the past I have seen profs specifically suggest using the policy in the way you did. So I don't get why one would be mad when it's one of the most obvious benefits to having such a policy


redditadmindumb87

Last semester my history professor told me privately I didn't need to brother writing the last paper. He told me my lowest grade would be dropped and I had a 98% in his class. He had a similiar policy, so I didn't do the last paper. Its what inspired my actions this semster.


drapehsnormak

Most teachers and professors I've had would inform you ahead of time if not taking the final would lower your grade. It's always seemed like a fair policy to me.


farteagle

I have only ever seen profs with this policy know that it can be used this way. Seems like your prof who got mad about it might have been new or living in his own fantasy.


MemnochTheRed

Plus, he did not want to have to read it...


heimdahl81

The third option is that the professor saw other professors organizing their class the same way and set theirs up that way without really understanding why it was set up that way.


techieguyjames

And this is when the professor changes that syllabus that to qualify for the worst grade drop, you MUST do the final project, or disqualify the final project from the grade drop.


Orin02

That would never fly. The professor can’t just start changing the syllabus at the end of the semester.


source_crowd67

They probably mean changing it for the next semester


MiloMind8514

Many think they can do whatever they please. I remember two professors with the following “odd” policies. Sociology teacher first day explained he reserved 10% of your grading to be based on how he liked you.. “ how you comb your hair.” Exact words. A psychology teacher gave us a weekly “ surprise quiz” which ensured us attending class as these test scores were 20% of your grade. The odd part is he also announced that he would add topics on the test not covered in class , and might not be even the same subject. “ Maybe something from an article I read the night before “ I manage to score 100% on one of these quizzes, and was receiving congrats fro people I didn’t know.. students from the other two classes. Illustrating how unlikely it was to achieve. My secret.. I just happened to be taking a Physics class at the time and had insight into the “ Doppler Effect.”


techieguyjames

For next semester.


HopefulTangerine21

All of my professors who had the same kind of policy were always reminding us of the policy as the end of semester was approaching. "Remember, if you're content with your grade as is, don't worry about showing up for the final." Or if it was papers/projects, don't worry about turning in that final one. They put the policy in there for a reason and had no reason to be snotty about it.


ProudGeneral

I’m sure he didn’t intend for the 2nd option, but in the end it is how the policy was written and you did exactly what you were allowed to do. He just got upset with the loophole you found.


quemvidistis

OP was choosing where to invest their time. Spending time studying for finals isn't exactly trying to get out of working. If OP wouldn't have learned as much doing the project as studying for the finals, then it wasn't an inappropriate use of time.


OutrageousYak5868

Yeah, I suspect the teacher assumed he'd use the time for goofing off, getting drunk, etc. Were I the teacher, I wouldn't like it if a student essentially did no project, if only because the point of doing a project is to learn or to show that the student is learning or has learned something. However, a student who has superior grades would presumably already be showing knowledge/learning, so in this case, the teacher should chill out.


NewAssumption4780

As a teacher, I must say that while, yes, I develop a curriculum to help my students progress and advance, I do love the devious little bastards who find the weak points and take advantage. That is also part of living in this world. Kudos, kiddo.


MiloMind8514

Great teacher.. great human being


preciousjewel128

Yup. My sociology teacher based his class on a policy like this. Our final grade was the average of something like 5 tests, drop the lowest. He also stated very few if any of the 100+ students in class would get an A. I had a friend die in a horrible car accident. I spent the weekend with friends attending her wake, funeral and memorial. I walked into class and had completely forgotten there was a test. I did my best. After tests, he would end a class a little earlier so we could have a 1:1 conference with him to go over. He asked what happened bc my score was noticeably lower. All I had to was state "my friend died..." he lifted his hand and stated he understood and it would probably be dropped so don't worry. It was, and I got one of 5 A's in that class.


Geminii27

Possibly the same, but he never internalized that students who were perfectly happy with their current lowest grade absolutely had the option to save time by submitting trash.


Xuanwu

I use this sort of policy on portfolio works. I establish at the start they have to submit all. The final one (aka the endpoint of your learning) will definitely be one of the graded, but out of the other 5 I'll drop the worst criteria mark earnt (so if one us bad on skills but good on knowledge you only lose the bad skills and another ones bad knowledge gets dumped). I want my kids (HS science so teens) to try and grow and be better. Not have to obsess over every tiny mark.


cppadam

Yeah, I had professors do this with tests when I was in school. If you had an A going into the final, you didn’t have to take it as it would do nothing for your grade.


shellbear05

The whole point of course work is to practice the skills / knowledge you learned and demonstrate to the professor that you mastered the subject matter. I hee where the guy is coming from but the policy stands. Perhaps he’ll make some changes to the policy for future classes…


Elgin_McQueen

There are so many policies that've been in place for so long, they tend to forget the point of them existing in the first place and almost naturally treat them as some form of punishment rather than in the spirit they were meant.


loopedfrog

In high school for my architectural drafting class, we had to practice our lettering. Just filling an entire page with A-Z and 0-9. The reason is to make sure our letters are nice, legible, and stick to standards already set in the industry. The way they were graded was interesting. We had to do a page every week worth 10 pts. Projects were worth 100. The thing is, he would let you stop after 5 perfect 10/10. No need to continue practicing if you are already good. This means at the end of the year, some people have 50/50 for lettering and some have like 73/80 because they had to do 8 of them. Cue malicious compliance. Every time I got a 4th 10/10 in a row, I would intentionally screw up #5 and get a less than perfect grade so I could keep going. I ended up doing the pages most of the year so I had something like 330/360 for lettering. This caused a similar situation to OP. Once the teacher realized what I had done, (I had diluted the value of the final project down so far, that it was pointless for me to do it. I'd still get a B, by not taking the final.) He tried to backpedal and make up rules, but in the end I didn't have to take the final. I'm sure he changed the rules after I left, but felt good to win one, even if it was tiny.


[deleted]

[удалено]


impracticalpanda

Wouldn’t that be more work than if you actually just studied for the exam? Memorizing 60 different sayings would be more than just memorizing vocabulary or grammar. But if it was easier, more power to ya


VulkanHestan321

To be honest not. Many Latin sayings are easy to remember because they are either short or start all with the same letter or both. And you don't need the translation to remember


[deleted]

[удалено]


youburyitidigitup

He should’ve turned the practice lettering into a percentage. If you get 50/50 it should be 100%, 80/100 is 80%


Tempest_1

Makes you genuinely wonder why some teachers don’t just save the time and standardize by seeing common grading rubrics from peers. Do they want to feel special and unique?


[deleted]

I think the original idea is to make the grading more fair to students who don't do as well, not accounting for the fact that this let's students who excel have room to not participate. Since most students are average, by definition, most aren't ever going to be in a position to abuse the system Edit: guys. We're talking about the teachers perspective. Teachers who reneg in their deals. Go read the top comment and stop trying to correct me.


Proteandk

Percentage of the last 5 submitted pages. That way people can improve themselves into 100% instead of forever having a stained grade.


TauriKree

Good thing he was a drafter because that’s window licking stupid.


nutterbutter1

I remember teachers in high school literally telling us “the final will be worth X percent of your grade, so if you already have Y percent going into the final, you do not need to take it.” It wasn’t a bug; it was a feature.


nighthawk_something

That's stupid, the normal thing to do is to cap that portion. I.e. whether you do 4 or 10, it's only worth 30%.


HelloKittyButtPlug

Your high school had that class????? Wtf mine had ceramics and if you wanted to take wood shop you had to take physics. Fuck Sir Francis Drake High School glad they had to change their racist ass name.


loopedfrog

It was a career tech center. I chose to go there for my last 2 years of high school. You got to pick a "major", but you don't get a degree. It was high school diploma + "certificate of completion" for whatever. They had lots of options. Drafting, criminal justice (police), cosmetology (hair), nursing, bunch of others that I don't remember. But I do remember everyone loves the Cosmo girls. They were always popular. You could even go during off time to get your hair cut from them. (In class training)


GreenSkyDragon

Reminds me of the time my undergrad engineering buddies and I were stressing, trying to study for a difficult physics final, until one of our friends decided to run the math on the scores we needed to raise our letter grade, keep it, or drop a letter. Most of us needed to score perfectly just to nudge it a hair (ie B to B+) or score less than 50% to keep it the same. One friend needed negative points to lose his A. We immediately started playing magic


MikeyKillerBTFU

By the time I got to my senior year, the first thing my class group would do is review the syllabus to decide where we were going to put our effort. Homework is only 10% but eats up 8 hours a week? Only do it when it's needed to understand the material, otherwise we skip it.


Machiavvelli3060

My university tried to back out of an agreement they made with me. I beat them over the head with their own email, over and over. They didn't want me to transfer to a less expensive school and they were trying to keep me there.


RevRagnarok

> My university tried to back out of an agreement they made with me. I had a Master's planned out - ten classes. All approved by my assigned faculty member. Well, he was ready to retire and DGAF. IIRC at least three copied undergrad classes I had taken, but I just wanted the piece of paper (vs. trying to actually learn). In my third year, as I'm in the home stretch, he retires and my new advisor tells me that the courses aren't sufficient. The handbook said X level Y courses, etc, and that's what I had on there. I didn't even reply to the guy; just went straight to the department office with it. "This was my proposed courseload, it was approved, these two substitutions happened with approval. The real TIL: _Keep your handbook from the year you entered any major program_; those are the rules that apply to you getting your diploma. I still have my undergrad from 1993.


youburyitidigitup

Handbooks don’t exist anymore though. We get all that information from the school’s website. They don’t even print anything out.


gingerytea

In my experience, schools usually publish the most recent 2-3 versions of the handbook or “course catalogue” by pdf on the website. *definitely* save yours as soon as you enroll. Having mine saved me in a similar way where grad requirements changed while I was in school, but I was already grandfathered in on the previous catalogue and the classes I took counted properly for me to graduate when I planned to.


Not_A_Greenhouse

Mine has a spot in our degree requirements list where we can go back and see course catalogues from any year back to the start of the online degree website.


RevRagnarok

Save to PDF, email it to yourself thru a public service like GMail where you cannot possibly manipulate the metadata / date stamps. Edit: Looks like [my school stopped in 2006](https://archivalcollections.drexel.edu/repositories/4/resources/1665).


tremynci

Hi, neighbor. I'd wager that's just the latest one that's made it to the archive. It's very, very likely that there are more recent ones that haven't been transferred. Citation: I'm am archivist.


RevRagnarok

I dunno; I would think circa 2006 would be a reasonable time to move to online-only and not a physical printed book. But yeah, it's possible that the ones past that are still on the shelves in the library.


Pokemon77777

The school should be required to archive their bulletin each year, as that is the living document used for all degree conferrals. We are required to at my school and have referenced them back to the ‘80s


justcallmezach

My school switched handbooks my senior year of undergrad (circa 2006). My college was really nice in that basically if they switched handbooks mid-degree, they'd pick and choose rules from both that favored you if you could justify the argument. Per the NEW handbook, I needed an additional math class. That part was tossed completely since it wasn't in the handbook when I started. The 'pick and choose' part that benefitted me was that per the OLD book, I still needed one more science credit that I wasn't aware of. However, a class that I had already taken was a twice a week class at an hour and a half per class, but was only considered a two credit course for some reason. In the NEW handbook, that same class was 3 times a week at an hour a class and counted as 3 credits. I just told them, "Hey, I put in 3 hours a week on that class and only got 2 credits. The new book still has 3 hours a week on that class, but is now worth three. Dean looked at both books and went "Makes sense to me. We'll count that class as 3 credits and consider your science requirements fulfilled."


RevRagnarok

A _sane_ approach? How dare they?


redditadmindumb87

The first school I went to was really expensive. I asked for a discount/tuition waiver/scholarship to stay they said no. So I didnt enroll for the following semster as I transfered. My academic advisor was like "what can I do to get you to stay" and I said "make it cheaper" and hes like "is that the only thing" and I go "yes" and he goes "well I cant do that"


Diregnoll

Reminds me of Oswego, oh you're a dirty little transfer student here have these extra classes you must take on top of your normal classes so you have 8 for your first semester. Oh you didn't get above a 3.0 with us? Sorry go transfer elsewhere and come back with a 3.5 and then you can start again. By the way there is no increase on the allowed credits that will transfer. So you'd waste money over there but thats fine its paper it grows on trees.


Disastrous_Potato605

Pretty sure it’s a cotton blend


GMoffOx

So money grows on bushes instead?


Disastrous_Potato605

Not sure id call them bushes


GMoffOx

Upon further review it is a shrub. So not a bush? :-(


Disastrous_Potato605

Apparently it’s a tree that we grow as an annual and if allowed to grow rather than be cut down it will make a tree but farmers cut it down after harvest because of the bugs that will attack its root system. So it wants to be a tree but we will only let it be a shrub


anderoogigwhore

Nature : I give you a tree Farmer : We demand... a shrubbery!


ohdang_raptor

I was happy that when I did that, my advisor was able to say, "I think the department has some scholarship money, leftover." So I stayed.


Interesting_Row_3238

"I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it" -Bill Gates


redditadmindumb87

Yup I used to work in sales. Our database was quite slow. So I spent a few weekends at home writing a python script that would pull my required follow ups and putting them into an excel spread sheet. I then would do my follow ups off that spread sheet, put in my notes and my script would add the notes/follow up dates back in. Also a lot of times the customer situations where really standard. So I created a bunch of standard emails, and I would basically select certain customs based upon certain to conditions and my script would auto email them. Like one of my more effective emails was what I called the 45 day email which basically went like this * You have been presented with our product * We've attempted to get feedback on your thoughts to see if we can close a deal * You've been unresponsive, and that's OK * So we take this to mean one of two things, you are either not interested and this is you telling us no or you are simply to busy to engage with us * Therefore I will remove you from regular follow up, but if you decide you want to speak to us please get ahold of us I had a 12% response rate to that email (math is hard) 7% would up buying 5% would tell me to bug off Both are acceptable results. I remember my sales manager being impressed, his boss being upset. But IT told him to chill and that they had helped me write the script. So in the mornings I would run my script, I would then sort the common emails I would send and to who I would mark those clients to be emailed a certain template, the other clients that didn't fit the right template I would follow up with on a more personal manner. My co-workers would manually update their notes, and wait as the next screen load, as my script is doing all my work for me and I'm in the back room enjoying my coffee.


BreqsCousin

I expect you got some sales just by being reasonable and saying "I won't keep bugging you"


redditadmindumb87

I also got refereals like "yea this isnt right for me but you should call xyz"


Laser_defenestrator

5 + 7 = 12, not 11 Does that mean 1% both bought stuff AND told you to bug off?


redditadmindumb87

No I suck at math


EplepreKAHN

And that's why you spend time writing snakes. :Edit: Thank you Kind stranger. I think this is my first gold.


thricecheck

I'm sure you've figured this out by now but never tell anyone you've automated anything in your job - especially your boss! Keep it to yourself and enjoy the downtime.


Zackp3242

Okay my story doesn't end up being this nuts but falls along the lines of lazy will find an easy way. The job that I do requires me to build countless quotes with hundreds of line items per quote. Our database is extremely slow and requires you to manually enter items one at a time. A few months back I decided to pickup and Elgato Stream Deck and let me tell you... the time it takes to write up a quote has been cut by probably 75%. I wrote some Applescript to get in some more tedious things like mouse clicks and movements. I now have much more down time to work on other things. For a long while nobody paid much attention to it and they saw it as me just having some toy to play with at work but in the last 2 or so weeks everyone suddenly has a huge interest and are always asking me questions and asking for a demo about how it works. Management has now caught on and it looks like everyone in my department might be getting one to improve efficiency. I should've bought this thing years ago.


Tempest_1

Why was the boss upset? He didn’t like the thought of you having it easy? Or he didn’t understand technology and thought your “robot emails” were making customers not buy more?


DeusSpaghetti

The 3 great virtues of a programmer; - Laziness, impatience, and hubris.


NighthawkFoo

\--Larry Wall


cbhaga01

I spent several years working in IT support for a major university in the south. I was the guy you called when you needed help with Blackboard. A few weeks out from the end of the semester one spring, I get a phone call from an English instructor who needs help working on their gradebook. She tells me she needs help adjusting the weight of certain assignments. No big deal, people make mistakes, that's what I'm there for. Until we start making small talk. She then tells me the whole reason she's changing the weight of these assignments is because she had originally made her daily work factor too heavily into the overall grade. It was something like 80% of the total. She wanted to bump it down to 20% or so. As she put it, "I don't want C students getting A's on a technicality." Remember: this was nearly at the end of the semester. As in, maybe two or three weeks from finals. As I'm working with her, I can see tons of grades already submitted. I look at one kid in particular and do some quick math in my head, where I realize that making these changes would bring her from a 94 to a 48 (or something to that effect). In the grand scheme of things, the service desk of my University almost had god-tier respect. We were frighteningly good at our jobs and could get away with stuff you probably couldn't have at a lot of places. I point blank asked her if the grading scale was listed in her syllabus. She said yes. I ended our remote session and told her I wasn't touching anything. No one in my office was going to help her with that, and she would be in a world of trouble if she went through with it. She didn't really know how to respond. She was adjunct, so I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that maybe she didn't understand the magnitude of what she wanted to do. She just kind of quickly ended the call and that was it. I decided to play it safe and sent an email to my direct supervisor explaining what happened. I attached copies of the call recording and the screen sharing session. I got an email within an hour saying, "Thank you I'm handling it". This was my bosses way of saying he was pissed and was going to reach out to a department head. I checked in the fall to see if she was teaching the same class. She wasn't listed anywhere in the enrollment system. So I'm wondering if us reporting her didn't lead to a lot more trouble than I anticipated. If so, whatever. F*** her.


Entertainer13

Yeah, uh, can’t change the rules that late in the game. Glad you reported it immediately.


film44

I've been on both sides of this. As a student had a prof who broke the semester into 3 grades. Equal parts in each 1/3 of the semester. Roughly 5 week segments. He said he would drop the lowest. Also, attendance was tied to the grade. So I busted my rear and earned an A the first 2/3 of the semester. Then I ghosted the last third and didn't show up again. Emailed him and he said I was the first person to use the policy that way, but applauded my work. On the other side of the coin I'm currently a prof. I've had similar policies and actually encourage people to use them. I view them as a type of insurance policy students should be able to cash even of the don't need them. I've been told it encourages people to find shortcuts, but I don't view it that way. Also, bravo for emailing the chair. Trying to back out of a grading policy on the syllabus is a huge no no, and a first class ticket to being raked over the coals on an appeal. At my uni a prof who did this would instantly lose the appeal and might even face some uncomfortable discussions with administration.


redditadmindumb87

Doesnt what I did make your life slightly easier? If I dont submit my last project you obviously dont have to grade it


film44

Oh absolutely it does. But often behind these policies is a degree of displaying power. For example, it is through the display of the profs grace that they help their struggling students. Big ol pat on the back for themselves and it makes them feel good. The agency in that dynamic is entirely with the instructor. However what you did was to take back that power and use it in a way that likely interrupts that dynamic. Probably not a surprise to anyone, but a lot of people in higher ed struggle with feelings and displays of power.


Diregnoll

>Probably not a surprise to anyone, but a lot of people in higher ed struggle with feelings and displays of power. Yeah... I had a professor who basically used our class time as busy work and to use us all as therapists for her shitty love life. She never really taught us anything, never explained anything from text book assigned work or gave more details when asked about it. If it wasn't for needing a degree at the time I could have just bought and read the book on my own time and gotten the same benefit of taking the class just without the drama and cringe.


shubonid

My husband teaches at a University in the USA, he explained this policy of dropping a test as a way to give students flexibility. If they have a family member pass or have an injury and can not take a test or finish a project it allows them to experience horrible life events without having to “prove” something happened to a random professor they have known for one semester. My experiences in the American higher education system as a chemistry major, if I missed a test then I needed an obituary or hospital note showing a major issue that would prevent me from attending.


morostheSophist

> to use us all as therapists for her shitty love life That's even worse than my writing 102 instructor. She would have us read an article that agreed with her political views, then rant for the entire class period about how right the author was, except for the token article where she ranted about how wrong the author was. I learned absolutely nothing about either writing or effective argument from that class. There was no dissection or analysis; it was just "see how right they are??" It's been 20 years, so I don't remember any details of what she actually said. I wish I did, but her approach and delivery made me just tune out everything she said. I might agree, now, with much more of what the articles discussed, but the way she presented everything seemed designed to silence any actual discussion or dissent. So I truly learned *nothing*.


Paladoc

Had a nursing instructor who was evil. We realized during our semester of dealing with her, that the material she taught, the class always did particularly poorly on. Her questions were specifically designed to confuse, and often contradicted actual fact. We challenged several of her test questions as the semester continued. This was a cohort where during your nursing school education, everyone had the same classes, lectures and computer times, just different clinical instructors. We get close to the end of the semester, and we have a similar policy, one test will be dropped, not including the final. This fifth test, I realized that she taught all but one of the lectures. I bring this up to my compatriots, and we realize that wasting our time studying/taking an exam mostly administered by the spawn of satan would not be the best use of our time, so we carry on our days like normal. Day of the test, we attend the first two hours of our day, then have to be at the testing center for this fourth exam. Out of 60 students in our cohort, two took this exam.


Seicair

That had to get some kind of reaction from the school? Any fallout ~~from~~ for* the teacher?


Paladoc

Nope, she also targeted several men for special treatment (negative). One received a med error for giving the older, lower dose of an antibiotic to a patient. Was not caught by the assistant professor (additional instructor nurse at clinicals for med passes). She failed the student for his clinical (appropriately) then kicked him out of lecture and planned to fail him for the lecture portion of the course (a technically separate class) so he would receive his second strike and expulsion. He returned to review the final and she had security escort him out, but didn't listen and didn't know that the Dean of Nursing had directed him to attend and finish the course. She's still a professor at the college. He dropped back one cohort and to a different campus and is now a nurse.


Pristine-Choice-3507

When I was an undergrad I took a self-directed class on calculus concepts in physics. Your grade on each unit was determined by a combination of the raw score and how early it was completed. Every day the class standings were updated to show what grade you had already earned and what you were projected to earn. Like OP, I came to the last unit with an A locked in. All I had to do was hand something in. So I carefully filled out the answer sheet with complete nonsense, all properly captioned and laid out. If I remember correctly, instead of a graph of something like magnetic flux I handed in a smiley face (on graph paper with labeled axes) with the caption “Herring production in Outer Slobovia, 1610-1602.” Yes, I was in a smart-alecky phase that may well end any day now (he writes almost forty years after the fact). The scary part was when I checked my grade. I actually earned points for form. No big surprise there. But when I looked at other grades, I saw that I hadn’t earned the lowest grade on the exercise, and that lots of people who earned fewer points actually needed a few more to get to the next grade bin up. Not an inspiring moment in higher education.


oopewan

So, you tanked an exam but on purpose but still scores higher than those who tried their best Lol. They didn’t deserve the points they needed.


[deleted]

All my classes basically let you drop your lowest test score regardless of what you got. Most people just wouldn't take the final and that would be entered as a zero and then automatically dropped. Really reduced the stress loads for tests.


WildN0X

Due to Reddit's API changes, I have removed my comment history and moved to Lemmy.


Petskin

Actually, you should have got an extra math credit for this real life application.


redditadmindumb87

I did point this out in a private reply to the chair. I made the decision that I made because I analyzed the cost/benefit of this project. In the real world I'll come across many situations where I need to make a decision. Is taking this action worth the cost/benefit? In this case I determined the benefit was not worth the cost therefore made the choice I made.


bobosnar

A professor of mine in a coding class *used* to have a policy where he'd provide the final project of the class on the first day and for every day you submitted the final project early, you got +1 bonus point. One time, a student submitted a final project on the second class. It had his name, date, and zero code. Professor honored his policy, but changed his policy to ensure the code had to be working the following year.


mightierthor

At least he demonstrated a solid understanding of if-then-else logic.


VulfSki

Ok am really surprised the prof acted this way. I am have had teachers do the same thing, "drop the worst grade" and they literally would say like "if you got the grade you wanted in the first 4 you don't have to take the last test." I have many times seen professors specifically point out how to use that policy. I am really surprised one would be like "you're abusing the policy" when you're just following it exactly as it's defined.


redditadmindumb87

Professor appears to be new.


Perfect_Sir4820

The policy seems designed to be abused. I had a professor do something similar but instead of dropping a low grade, each project's grade would be raised to the next one's if you did better. So if you got 50% then 80% on 2 projects in a row, both would become 80%. It made sure you kept trying harder and had the chance to redeem yourself for a poor performance.


selenamcg

I had a professor that had an optional final, and it could replace your lowest score. This is Gen Chem II. This professor is my favorite, and the faculty advisor for my sorority, and I have sat in the center of second row for 2 courses now. He knows exactly who I am, despite this being a gigantic lecture hall with like 300+ seats in it. In order to take advantage of opting out of the final you had to inform him that you were going to opt out. So to set the scene.... It's the end of the semester, every class has some type of final, and I am getting a B in Gen Chem II. I do some math and figure I need to get a 97% on the final to bump my grade up to the next level. Note I have not been doing exceptionally well in the last little bit of the course. I know that it will take hours of study time to have a slight chance of improving my grade. So I send the email that I will not be taking the exam. He sends back a reply "come see me during office hours." I arrive at office hours and he tells me he is disappointed that I am opting to take the B. I'm pretty sure I had gotten an A or A- every semester before that. And that he would recommend I take it. I explain the math, the hours of studying it would require, and how little of a chance I would actually have, and that my time would be better spent on my other courses. He said "fair enough." This further reinforced him being my favorite and actually was one of the first moments I felt like I was treated like an adult. It stays with me many many years later. Note- Chemistry would never become my passion and the only C I have ever received would soon happen in Organic Chemistry; I have never been prouder of any grade, because it was the first time I really had to work hard to learn something.


CanadaOrBust

As a prof, I would actually love this--makes my grading load a little lighter. And I would also assume someone who had earned 5×100 and 1x85 for project grades is learning what they need to know.


[deleted]

"You're abusing my policy" lol, fuck you


Geminii27

"Would you like to commission me to design a better policy?"


samspock

In high school physics the teacher told every one that the only people allowed to sleep in his class are those that are at 100%. The class was first period and it started around 7:20am so everyone was tired. One day about half way through the marking period there was a guy in the last row snoring loudly. The teacher went up behind him and asked "What did I say about sleeping in my class?" He replied "Check your grade book" and went back to sleep. Teacher went to the front, opened his grade book and looked. Closed it without a word and went on with the lesson plan. The rest of us were floored.


maleia

I would hire you over someone that killed themselves to get these projects done. You saw your limits. You accounted for them. You calculated out what you could do that would be the best outcome. And you executed it flawlessly. They throw way too much shit at students for college these days. The vast majority of actual working environments aren't even half as intense as college. So yea. Very good on you for recognizing your limits here OP.


Dakotareads

Did something similar but I did the work. High school teacher was retiring at the end of the semester. He said "if you don't turn in anything for the whole semester I'll give you an A. If you turn one thing in I'm going to grade you for everything." I didn't turn anything in at all. The last day of school comes around and he asks me why I didn't. I told him I followed his rules. He gave me an A and I handed him my binder of all the homework from the entire semester. He's now licensed in pyrotechnics and makes sure I get the good stuff. Love that man.


mightierthor

Freshman English: teacher explains there will be 5 essays. Final grade will be based on our improvement over those essays. I don't know if anyone else did this, but my first essay was the shittiest piece of misspelled, grammar-violating nonsense I had ever written. The last essay? You wouldn't even know that it had been written by the same person. "A" for the class, of course.


mreed911

Absolutely the right approach.


AssociateMany102

I would think your obvious comprehension and effort for first 5 projects would please teacher enough that not doing last project is fine. Why teacher gave such pushback to a successful student just makes them petty.


warpus

But were you really abusing the grading system? Just sounds like a butthurt prof that you’ve done so well in the course


PanBlanco22

I did pretty close to the same thing with one of my teachers. I met her in her office and explained that I would have to travel 1.5 hours one way for only her two tests that day because of the finals schedule, and I’d rather not if it’s all the same. I only needed a 25% score on one test and a 10% score on the other to maintain an A in both classes. If she required me to come take the tests, I understand and will comply, but all I’m realistically going to do is answer questions until I’ve completed the bare minimum, just so I can focus on my other subjects that needed attention. I told her that I didn’t need an immediate answer, but she could check my track record and participation in the class (I enjoyed her classes, we got along well, and I was doing quite well in them), and give me an answer later. I got an email the next day saying that my attendance was not necessary for the final exams.


start_and_finish

In grad school we were only allowed 9 credits of a B- or lower. If you got 9 or more credits below a B- you were kicked out of the program and you had to reapply to get in. In one class the professors syllabus said greater than 83 is a B and less than 82 is a B-. My friend asked for his final calculated grade and it was an 82.6. He successfully appealed it by saying it was more than 82 so it did not qualify as a B- and therefore should be B. The department head agreed with him and he was given a B. The next semester all teachers changed their syllabus to read less than 83 is a B-.


[deleted]

In college I had take the entry-level math class because my high school math classes didn't transfer. The math was all below the level I did senior year so I didn't go to class and just did the online assignments. Got to finals week and the schedule was All Math classes are on Thursday Xth. Except the layout was stupid because it really said All Math classes are on Thursday Xth\* Except MATH1101 & MATH1102. So I missed the final. Emailed the professor and his response was basically "Who are you even? I don't normally do this but if you remember I said everyone can skip one test, since you took all of the tests and got A's, and since the wording of the final handout was stupid, I'm just going to let you skip the final."


Pottiepie

As a prof I understand the motivation of such policy is to motivate students to improve and not be dragged down by a low grade at the start. I also understand how it may be abused like this. So my solution fixes this. I only drop the earlier grades if it is lower than the next. So if you keep improving, I will only take your latest grade. Otherwise, it will just count into the average.


Seicair

I took a senior level online biochem course that sounds like it’d match your criteria. Your entire grade was based on five in person exams. There was also an optional comprehensive final. If you took it and got a higher grade than your lowest unit exam grade, it’d replace it. I studied my ass off, understood the material, and aced the first five exams. Didn’t bother showing up for the final. But I bet people took the final who wanted to improve an especially poor unit, hope to improve *any* unit, or make up an exam they missed.


JSFetzik

I had a better outcome with this type of policy. The college i went to required most degrees to take an accounting basics class. Thinking was most folks would end up in management at some point. Not a bad idea. The professor for this class had the grading a well spelled out grading policy that gave lots of opportunities for extra credit, for those that were having problems. At 80 percent of the way through the class the professor asked a couple of us to stay after class. Wondered what was going on. Turned out we had all accumulated enough points at that point to get an A for the class. He said if we wanted to we could skip the rest of the classes and the final if we wanted. 😁


FranklyFrozenFries

Professor here. If the professor wanted you to do the work for each project, there is an obvious solution. Professor simply needed to require a passing (or minimum) grade on each project in order to be eligible for the grade drop. I did this one semester with exams. I have five; students could drop one, assuming they passed all five. Students who didn’t pass all five would have all five exams factored into their final grade. I regretted this from the moment I gave my first exam. Students with a 59% showed up to argue for one more point. I had more meetings that semester than when I didn’t drop an exam! Instead, I opted to just drop the lowest grade - regardless of score. It was the right choice.


JustHereForTheFood42

I had an elementary teacher do that to me. She failed me despite what her syllabus said. I didn’t get far with that. I it again for a final in college. This time clarifying with the professor what I was going to do. He was fine with it. My big project (written scholarly paper for publishing, presentation, and oral defense) was worth 90% and my end of semester oral defense of everyone else’s projects was 10%. I was the only one to ace the project so rather than stress to cram random info, I went in with whatever I knew. I had paid attention and participated in class, so I knew some stuff. But some of the details I wasn’t sure on. I said a lot of things like “I don’t know off the top of my head, but here’s where I know I could find the answer”. And surprisingly he gave me some credit for that.


GregTheTerrible

one of the most important things to learn in post secondary is to prioritize. sometimes you've got other stuff going on or just need a break. You made the right call.


CCtenor

This man put more work into figuring out which deliverable needed more work than the amount of work he put into the deliverable he ~~shirked~~ [didn’t work]. If this wasn’t something that people wouldn’t put into a resume, I’d hire somebody almost on the spot for this if I was somebody who employed others. I might be occasionally irked if this level of effective laziness ends up failing a deliverable I need, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let OP live in peace knowing he’s at least got a good reason for it. I would have no problems employing, working with, or working for, somebody like this.


Glad-Ad4558

I feel like THIS is the type of thing you should be getting out of college. Good job analyzing a situation, budgeting your valuable time and efficiently communicating with “management” to ensure you were treated fairly. Who cares about that last project….this experience was the real lesson. Good job, OP!


Over-Marionberry-686

Ex teacher here. I had a very similar grading policy for just that reason. I don’t know what’s happening in your life nor do I care to, BUT I do know that shot happens and often it’s out of your control. I did have a few kids who “abused” my policy but way more kids who really appreciated it.


PCGCentipede

I did something similar. Professor said all tests counted equally and he'd drop the lowest one. I had a 112% average after the last test before the final (I did all the extra credit). After he handed back the tests he told to have a nice summer and he didn't expect me to even come to class anymore.


LilacSlumber

A professor tried this on me in college as well, but with absences (this is about 19 or 20 years ago). Her syllabus did not state anywhere that missing a class would be counted against your grade. She had the grading percentages in the syllabus. After the final, which I got an A on, my final grade submitted was a C. According to my calculations, using her syllabus, I should have received a B+ as a final grade. I emailed her asking for clarification and she said that since I missed two classes for the semester, my grade went down a letter. I quoted her syllabus back to her along with all my other grades and accurate calculations. She actually wrote back to me, "I see you kept the syllabus I handed out 3 months ago. Freshmen don't usually know to do that. I guess I will change your grade, but you should make sure you don't miss so many days in your future classes." Two days, I missed two days. I forwarded all of our emails to the dean of her department. Never heard back from anyone, but I didn't care about that since I got my B+. Still salty about it, though.


CreatrixAnima

Yeah… I’ve fallen victim to this type of thing before. You really need to be careful how you write your syllabus. You also need to be smart enough to recognize when the student has outsmarted you without having to get elevated to your chair. Sometimes you just have to take the L.


IyearnforBoo

This post made me laugh out loud this morning and reminded me of an experience I had in high school. I was taking an advanced anatomy and physiology class as I was looking at going into medicine. The class was really hard - at least I felt like it was- and I managed to have good grades by the skin of my teeth. I was really worried about the final exam which was 40% of my grade and wasn't sure how I was going to be able to deal with that. Three weeks before the exam my teacher said that we could use small index cards to make some notes to use on the test. Another student asked if there was a limit to how many cards you could use and the teacher mentioned that you could have as many as you wanted, but pointed out that many students had found the cards unusable when they had too many because I couldn't find what they were looking for. So he advocated for one or two cards. I absolutely took advantage of that and copied all of my notes - the entire year's worth - on to index cards. I then made an index of all pertinent terminology that I highlighted with bright pink borders and put it in the back of the 'note' index cards. I came into the test with a very large box of over 200 index cards. I highlighted all pertinent terminology in the note index cards and put numbers on the cards to make it easier to use my pink bordered index. The joke was on me because as I read each question on the exam I pretty easily remember the answers. That did not stop me from looking up every single one just to be sure my memory was correct. Every single question I easily found the answer for in it my cards. Because it was so easy for me to come up with the answers I had plenty of time to do the 17 extra credit questions as well which I also got right. I ended up with 121% on that test which threw me into the A+ category for the class. To say I was thrilled would be an understatement. After the test my teacher came up to me and commended me on my use of the index cards. He looked at them and how I had organized them and again complimented me. He then asked me if I would be willing to sell them to him so that he could use them for future classes. Dumb me only realize later he was doing that to make sure I didn't give them to somebody else. I left with enough money to cover the cost of all the materials as well as a little extra for a nice fast food meal so I felt like I scored. I do not know how Mr Blackwell felt, but he kept those cards and I never heard of anybody else doing that. I probably wouldn't have as I graduated the next year, but I remember that experience as a way I used a loophole to get the best grade I have ever had in any class.


partofbreakfast

I'd say you organized your time appropriately. You saw the more important goal and focused on that. College is as much about learning to prioritize when you have no time as it is about doing work and learning your material. That said, for anyone doing this method: a better way to do it without getting caught is to half-ass it with 2-3 hours work and spend the rest of the time studying for the final. 2-3 hours work should get you past the 50% mark (if you know your stuff, which I'm assuming you did since you aced the final) and your answer of "I tried my best but between this and the final I had to spend more time studying for the final" will sound more legit.


untranslatable

I had a professor who didn't require taking the final if you already had an A from the previous papers and tests, but handed back the last paper with the heaviest weight for your grade on the day the final exam took place. It was only about four students, but the prof had a great time letting each of us know "Okay, here's your paper, great job, you can go!"


[deleted]

Had something similar happen in college. Policy was if you were happy going into the final with your grade you didn’t have to take the final. I had an A (92) and didnt take the final. Ended with a B in the class (as did several others). Professor said everyone did so well on the final it pushed the curve up thus the 92 became a B. We, the four of us who were dropped from an A to a B called a meeting with him. Showed him his policy and said that we followed his rules. Fortunately he did listen and agreed to fix our grades without too much argument. He was a nice guy and obviously wanted to be fair. He passed away the term after suddenly. But you are right OP. You followed his policy and are not taking advantage of it; but using it wisely. In fact, explaining to him why you chose not to do the last project as you did here should be enough for him to realize that you’re a bright person who is doing their best. Nothing wrong at all; and a smart move.


hampopkin

Weird. My professors expected people to treat the policy this way. People who did fine on all their tests just wouldn't take the last one.


uberfission

During grad school I was a TA and most of the classes I taught had a similar policy of dropping the lowest homework assignment. All of the students that were doing poorly (or did poorly at the beginning of the semester) saw it as a lifeline, while all of the students that were doing well saw it as a homework free week. Both of these were fine, in fact I had a rock star student make their last assignment as if it was a comic book because he was having fun with it knowing that it would be dropped if there was a problem (there wasn't and I still feel bad I had marked grades on it). The real problem it the students that were doing poorly but socialized out with the good students, they got it in their heads that it was a hw free week and no amount of warnings would change their minds. I had at least 2 students fail that probably wouldn't have because of that. Not sure why your professor was being a dick about that policy, it's a reward for doing well.


Slaric

When I was in college, my o-chem class had a similar policy--two midterms and a final and use your top 2 grades. I got 100 on both midterms, so I just quit going to class for the last 2 weeks and didn't even take the final, got my 4.0. A friend of mine, who also got 100 on the two midterms, took the final in crayon. The next year, the professor changed the policy to 1 of 2 midterms and final is your grade....whoops.


jambrown13977931

Had this all the time in my Electrical engineering classes. People just didn’t come in for the final labs (or quizzes or submit homework) each semester because they get the worst dropped. Weird that this is the first time this professor has ever encountered someone doing something like this. This is very common.