Author: howtonotsuckatcollege

We Care About Our Students

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“Thank beautiful-hands-heart-5390you for taking the time to talk to me outside of class.”

A student recently said this to me and I was shocked that he was thanking me for this. Talking to students is what I love to do, and it is so ingrained in my practice that I don’t think of it as any sort of extra effort. I think there is a prevailing notion among college students that professors are there simply to impart knowledge and collect a paycheck.

For me, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

I can’t speak for all professors, but I do feel strongly that the vast majority of us genuinely care about our students. We care about you not only as learners, but as people.

When I walk into a classroom I do not see a room full of faceless strangers. I see a group of individuals all with unique identities, backgrounds, experiences, and dreams. When we make small talk at the beginning of class I am genuinely interested in how your job interview went, or how your cat is feeling after a recent illness, or what concert you went to last weekend. When you are hurting, I want to help comfort you. When you are successful, I want to cheer you on. When something funny happened to you recently, I want to hear the story in all its glorious detail.

Not long ago I lost a former student to suicide. Although we only spent about four months together in class, I was shattered. The week that I found out I went to each of my classes and tearfully told them what had happened and gave them the contact information for our school’s counseling services, distraught at the thought of that happening to any more of my students.

I know sometimes it might seem like we don’t care. You might have gotten a bad grade from one of us. We get overwhelmed by the demands of our jobs and seem detached. Our schedules don’t afford us as much time to meet with you as we would like. In these moments it can feel like we are not invested in you and your future, but we are.

To any student who reads this, I encourage you to reach out to your professors and talk to us as humans. You may be surprised by how many of us do want to take the time to talk to you outside of class. We want to hear about your progress, your concerns, your trials, your triumphs. We want to read the funny meme you came across this weekend. We want to offer words of encouragement when you have a big exam coming up. We want to share words of comfort when you lose a loved one.

We do care, and we want you to know that.

Don’t Wait Until the End of the Semester to Care about Your Grade

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“I’lpen-162124_1280l do anything to pass this class!” proclaims the desperate failing student at the end of the semester. Unfortunately, the only option this student has to pass the class is to build a time machine, travel to the beginning of the semester, and actually do all of the assignments they failed to turn in.

This is a common problem facing students and faculty members alike. Despite the multitude of assignments given and grades assigned, college students often wait until the last few weeks of the semester to start paying attention to their grades.

Don’t let this be you.

In order to set yourself up for success, you should care about your grade from day one of the semester. Here are a few things you can do to stay on top of your grades:

  1. Any good professor will keep grades updated throughout the term so you always know where you stand in the course. You should check your grades frequently and contact your professor if you have any concerns about earning the grade you desire in the class. For example, if you do poorly on the first test you should talk to your professor immediately after you receive your grade to find out what you can do to score higher on the next test. If you wait until after you have failed all of your tests to ask for help, it will be too late to salvage your grade.
  2. Ask for a second chance. This one depends entirely on the teaching philosophy of your professor, but if you request a meeting and ask for an opportunity to revise an assignment for additional points, you may be able to raise your grade. Some professors will even give back some points simply because you took the initiative to meet with them. Just remember to ask politely and respect their decision if they say no.
  3. If you haven’t gotten any grades or have numerous assignments without grades, contact your professor. We often fall behind on grading because of our busy schedules, but requests from students sometimes light that fire we need in order to get the grading done.
  4. Read your syllabus so you know what the grading scale is for the course. Know how many points you need to earn to achieve your desired grade and track your progress as you go. The last thing you want is a surprise at the end of the semester because you didn’t understand the grading scale.
  5. Don’t rely on extra credit to save you. Your class may or may not include extra credit opportunities, but these opportunities are typically not enough to make up for numerous missed assignments or failing grades. Concentrate on the regular assignments, because that is where you will earn most of your points.
  6. Don’t beg when it is too little too late. You can’t go back in time and turn in assignments you missed or study for tests you didn’t study for. In the last few weeks of the semester there are typically only a few assignments remaining, and they will not be enough to save your grade. Your professor has given you plenty of opportunities to be successful in the class and it is not their fault if you didn’t take advantage of these opportunities when you had the chance.

In short, you should care about your success in the class from the first day and continue to care about it throughout the semester. Don’t wait until final grades are looming to suddenly pay attention or you may find that it is too late to save your GPA.

Read the Damn Syllabus

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keep-calm-and-read-the-syllabusI gave an exam in one of my classes a week ago. After exam grades had been handed back, a student in the class who did poorly complained to me. The complaint was that they missed class the day that I talked about the test and therefore ended up a week behind on being able to study for it. Trying to keep a straight face and keep my eyes from rolling into the back of my head, I calmly uttered the one phrase that emanates from the mouths of exasperated professors across the nation every single semester…

…”It’s in the syllabus.”

The college syllabus is not a waste of paper that should be tossed away and forgotten after the first day of class. It is a contract between you and your professor that contains information critical to your success in the course. The syllabus typically includes professor contact information, required course materials, course policies, school policies, assignment descriptions, and the course schedule, among other elements. Yet professors are approached by countless students every semester who are unaware of some of the most basic policies of a course.

Take my classes for example. My attendance and participation policy takes up almost a full page in my syllabus. It includes the expectations for attendance and participation, the penalties for missing class, and the requirements for getting an absence excused. Despite this detailed information, I get emails at the end of the semester from students complaining about their attendance and participation grade. “I think I participated a lot in class,” they say, unaware that their 11 absences resulted in a letter grade drop in the course. Had they read the attendance policy section of the syllabus, their grade would not have come as a surprise.

This brings me to today’s sage piece of college-going wisdom: read the damn syllabus.

Dr. Diane McNulty, a professor a the University of Texas at Dallas, lists not reading the syllabus as one of the top 10 things that drives college professors crazy.  There are few things more exasperating to a professor than having to answer a question about something that is clearly outlined in the course syllabus. We spend a lot of time carefully crafting our syllabi, and it is exceptionally frustrating when all of our hard work goes unread.

Reading the syllabus shouldn’t just be about saving your professors from ripping their hair out, however. There are countless benefits to you as a student when you thoroughly read and understand the information presented in your syllabus. If you want to be successful in a class, you need to know what the expectations are for that class. You need to know how to get in touch with your professor if you have questions. You need to know what the required materials are for the course. You need to know course policies such as attendance and late work. And, like my student who was unaware of the upcoming exam, you need to know the requirements and due dates for your assignments.

In addition to covering the basic information about a particular course, syllabi often include information about important resources within the college as a whole. My syllabi, for example, include information about tutoring, writing help, library services, veteran services, counseling services, student rights, accessibility services, and tech support. These are a great way to learn about some of the extra support the college offers you outside of the classroom. From my own experience, the students who demonstrate knowledge of the information in the syllabus tend to be the ones who perform better in the class.

The last reason you want to read your course syllabus is that sometimes your professors like to sneak Easter Eggs into them. These are typically opportunities for points that are not announced in class. An article by Fernanda Zamudio-Suaréz in the Chronicle of Higher Education gives several examples of Easter Eggs that professors have buried in their syllabi, including requests to send them pictures of dinosaurs, medieval tattoos, and the TV character ALF.

The use of Easter Eggs is something I have tried in my courses as well. One semester I added a clause in the syllabus that offered extra credit points to anyone who came to meet with me mid-semester to discuss their course progress. Of the approximately 120 students who were given this option, exactly one student actually saw the clause and came to meet with me. A friend of mine who put a similar Easter Egg in his syllabus got zero responses from any of his students, many of whom could certainly have used those bonus points.

Success in any college course starts with understanding the basic policies and schedule of that course. We use products more easily when we read the directions, we find our way to new places better when we read the map, and we do better in our classes when we read the syllabus. So please save your professors from complete exasperation and save yourself from unpleasant surprises in your classes and just read the damn syllabus.

Treat College Like it is Your Job

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Laptop and Coffee

Imagine that you have just started a new job. On the first day after being introduced to your new boss by their title, you decide to constantly call your boss by their first name. Although you arrive at work on time for the first few weeks, eventually you start showing up later and later. Some days you don’t come in at all, and you tell your boss the reason for your absence is that you had somewhere more important to be. After you are assigned to a team task, you fail to communicate with any of your team members or show up to any team meetings. When your boss evaluates the little work you do complete, you loudly complain to anyone who will listen about how they evaluated you incorrectly. You then decide to send your boss lengthy emails telling them how to do their job better. Eventually, you stop showing up altogether.

Now you may be wondering, “Is this a true story? Did this person get fired?”

The answer to those questions are yes it is a true story, and no they didn’t get fired because they weren’t an employee. They were one of my students.

Any one of these unacceptable behaviors would easily get someone fired from the workplace, and yet countless college students behave this way in classes every day.

Here are just some of the behaviors that I see regularly in my college classrooms that would easily get someone fired if they were an employee:

  1. Consistently showing up late or failing to show up to class
  2. Sending emails to the professor that are in all caps, use profanity and insults, or that make demands
  3. Causing disruptions during lectures or when other students are trying to work
  4. Failing to complete assignments or trying to turn in assignments far beyond the deadline
  5. Complaining to everyone about class assignments or the professor
  6. Behaving rudely towards the professor in person
  7. Lying to the professor about why they did not complete an assignment

Chances are, you wouldn’t engage in any of these behaviors in the workplace because any one of them could get you reprimanded or fired. Yet, these types of behaviors are commonplace in college classrooms, and many students believe that acting this way is perfectly acceptable. However, if you wouldn’t behave this way at work, you shouldn’t be behaving this way at school.

You may have already heard the adage that you should treat college like you would treat a job. Although it may seem cliché to say this, there are a number of compelling reasons why you should.

First, a college classroom is not Saturday night at the bar with your friends. It is a professional environment that should be treated as such. Sure, the dress code might be a little less formal than in your workplace, but just because you are sitting in class in jeans and a t-shirt doesn’t mean that you should interrupt your professor and curse like a sailor.

Second, professional conduct facilitates student success. You probably won’t last long in your job if you aren’t showing up for your shifts, and you also probably won’t pass a class if you can’t be bothered to attend regularly or do your homework. The same behaviors that lead to success in the workplace also lead to success in the classroom. If you show up every day on time, listen mindfully to lessons, follow assignment instructions and meet assignment deadlines, and communicate respectfully with your professor, you will ultimately be setting yourself up for success in the class. Class time is also an opportunity to prepare for your future career, so you will want to act professionally unless your future career plans involve getting fired a lot.

Third, past behavior influences future outcomes. Say you have spent your time in college behaving disrespectfully towards your professors and doing the bare minimum to get by in your classes. You’ve managed to graduate and now it is time to apply for a job or to graduate school. You now need three references or three letters of recommendation. Who is going to write you a glowing recommendation? The professor you emailed in all caps, cursing wildly and demanding a higher grade? The professor who barely remembers you because you only showed up to class for half of the semester? The professor you constantly mouthed off to and interrupted frequently during lectures? Chances are, if you behaved unprofessionally in your classes, there won’t be any professors clamoring to write you a recommendation.

Based on all of the above, it is clear that treating college like you would treat your job is critical for your success. There are no compelling reasons why you should not approach your education like a professional. After all, there is a reason why people call it your college career.