just take the A-

5/12/2011 5:05:13 PM

Quote :

"We could have 2 excused absences. Two of the classes I was sick, and have the proper documentation for them to be excused. So it was just 1 un excused absence."

Quote :

"He only randomly checked attendance 20 times, and I was there 15 of them, so I got a 75%. (averaged together, a 87.5%)"

I'm not sure i follow how the 3 classes you missed translated down to 5. Or are you saying you had 2 excused, 2 unexcused, and the last one went over the limit?

5/12/2011 5:09:38 PM

Quote :

"Or are you saying you had 2 excused, 2 unexcused, and the last one went over the limit?"

yes

so my attendance/participation grade for the semester was a 75. I've talked to 3 other people who all got 70 for attendance/participation, but yet received an A off of the get-go. All other grades are exactly the same (you turn it in, you get a 100). When I told them what I got, they all were like "wow. that makes no sense."

5/12/2011 5:33:01 PM

im sorry, you've typed a whole lot of story but all i can read is "wah wah wah"

5/12/2011 5:41:29 PM

A- for skipping class at least 5 times

FIRST

WORLD

PROBLEMS

5/12/2011 6:02:04 PM

Quote :

"This semester my favorite student decided to go over my head straight to the dean. The dean then called me and said this student was the most condescending and arrogant prick they'd ever spoken to. I randomly sample my students' work for plagiarism, but this made me so mad I ran this twerp's entire collected works through the system. Guess what? She went from being unhappy with her 89 to failing the course. I guess she thought there was something wrong with me, a professor from bumfuck NC, essentially giving the UN's top scientists a B+ on some of their climate change findings."

she went from being your favorite student to being a condescending arrogant prick.

So basically you demonstrated how poor your character judgement is and showed how petty you are by stooping to her 'level' and being a douchebag.

5/12/2011 6:04:38 PM

She plagiarized her work.... is there any proper response other than failing her?

I'm just curious how this went down. I don't understand how someone can be that stupid. Did she try to deny it at first?

5/12/2011 6:07:17 PM

i bolded "my favorite student" to emphasize sarcasm.

if they really were my favorite student why would they go over my head?

if you cant recognize my post as terrific advice for the OP then... idk what to tell you.

also they weren't condescending and arrogant to me, they were to the dean (a much bigger mistake).

this is how it went down-

she was a transfer student from appstate and idk why but she had a massive chip on her shoulder. anyway, she had actually emailed me at one point about how my class SHOULD HAVE been an easy A, but it wasn't turning out that way. i could appreciate her work as decent, but she had avoided my previously random plagiarism screenings to that point.

now i can recognize obvious cheating, but the real lolz here is the fact the UN articles were not well-written or "amazing" enough to trigger any alarms in my head- they truly didn't make her sound like a genius. anyway, she got away with this for several weeks, but i don't think i was out of line destroying her.

in the end she didn't try to deny it- she didn't do anything at all. she took it like a champ i suppose? i still cant stand cheaters.

5/12/2011 6:18:45 PM

I can't believe the OP is dragging this shit out to 2 pages when pretty much everyone is saying the same shit.

also:

Quote :

"if i was your professor and bumped your grade up to an A- for your being persistent, then you came to meet with me, the second you mentioned you should have an A i would show your ungrateful ass the door."

5/12/2011 6:22:26 PM

something I learned in grad school:

not every professor will like you. some may REALLY not like you and grade a little harder because they think you're a dick. that happened to me. but instead of being a whiny bitch, I tried even harder to do awesome so that the prof would hate even MORE because I was so awesome.

5/12/2011 6:26:42 PM

bottom line is don't nitpick little things and don't draw unnecessary attention to your grades (especially if you might even be benefiting from some mathmatical anomaly).

in the grade scheme of things it doesn't matter.

it could easily cause a much bigger mess for you- you don't know how much of a douche this guy might actually be.

is it worth taking the chance? no.

my class is incredibly subjective and i don't have a rubrik. it honestly boils down to what i declare "good" work and "shit" work based on my experiences. i remember when i was in school and how hard i had to work to create varying degrees of crap.

if i remember writing some shit comparable to what one of my students just turned in, and i was jacking off playing ninja gaiden at the time, then its probably worth an 80 or 85 (which is what my professors gave me). i always thought the grades i received were very fair and loved my instructors.

my students seem to love me (except for the one jackass i always seem to have). ONE. ITS ALWAYS ONE!

oh, and professors don't discriminate based on what department you come from. i would honestly say it's probably the opposite- i get tired of seeing all these generic fucks coming through taking my classes because it's on their goddamn advisor checksheet. go out on a limb and take it as an elective folks!

[Edited on May 12, 2011 at 6:29 PM. Reason : hiklojkg]

5/12/2011 6:28:11 PM

Thats one reason why I HATE open graded classes like that. It is totally up to the professor and their "feelings" on if you get a good grade or not or their experiences. Not on hard data/answers.

5/12/2011 6:34:26 PM

yes, the professor's feelings are completely irrelavent.

they don't know shit about the material or how it applies to real life.

you're much smarter reading the text, watching a movie, paroosing google, and completing the worksheet.

we could all learn a thing or two from substitute teachers- this is their teaching style after all.

i hope for your sake you're a math major and not at a liberal arts college (assuming you're serious).

5/12/2011 6:47:51 PM

The opinions can vary greatly from one instructor at one school to another at another institution. I am a science based major and always was displeased with essay form questions. Ive done well in all aspects but always thought that when opinion was introduced to academics it does not bode well. IF it is a simple matter then sure, its easy to just write what the standard is and continue from there. However, if it has any form of opinion based or persuasive research/work then its much more difficult to accurately measure and compare to other similar classes.

5/12/2011 6:58:08 PM

Quote :

"paroosing google"

seriously?

you're a professor at state?

5/12/2011 7:00:50 PM

I remember back in the day, I dropped a class right at the drop deadline cause I was doing poor in a class, when I went to talk to him about it, he told me that I was "chickening out" and such, I told him he was bad at getting the idea across

just to add insult to injury, I made an A with a different professor the next semester

5/12/2011 7:07:15 PM

no im not a professor at state.

and dont you like urbandictionary?

5/12/2011 7:40:25 PM

A repeat of what others have said in other words...


After you graduate, you'll be held accountable for thing in far different ways than getting an A-...

....knowing the other person's grade is better than yours is irrelevant...

There will always be people whom you regard as less than yourself, who get more/ make more/ inspire more than you.

Take this as lesson #751 of your college career, move on, and be grateful for the A- that you rec'd essentially for missing a class 5 times which could have been an easy 'true' A if you'd applied yourself correctly...
...during the period of time that mattered, not an after thought when you didn't get your way.

5/12/2011 8:26:37 PM

i'd like to hear how this turns out - i'm betting the A- is the best case scenario

5/12/2011 8:36:29 PM

I am still flabbergasted that this guy was given an A- that he didn't earn, and is bitching because he didn't get an A. I actually had to reread the post 3 times to be sure I wasn't misunderstanding. Good ole American "I deserve everything without actually working for it" attitude.

5/12/2011 9:27:20 PM

Dude.

If you seriously freak out over every time someone helps you out and it's not up to some whacked out standards you have, you will fail in life.

Fail.

5/12/2011 9:37:02 PM

so im def not that "one student" from the class. we've had a decent relationship. its a small class, and most everyone in there has had him before, so they all get along with him alot better than me. I think i made me maddest because since its an A- and not an A like everyone else, I just missed making deans list (which would be my first time).

I can tell many of you arent reading through all of the post and are posting stupid stuff, so im just going to ignore you. Im sure nothing will probably come out of it, im just trying to figure out how he is doing the grading. He is obviously not following the grading rubric in the syllabus, and I actually had better attendance then most people in the class. I know the teacher has been getting destroyed in class evals the past 2 semesters he's been here (he talked alot about it during the semester). Im just trying to figure out how he decided on the grades. There is no chance of plagiarism or anything like that, really all we had to do were 5 short (2 pg- double spaced) journal type assignments (which is why I got a 100 on all of them). It seems that my attendance grade weighed more than everyone else's that ive talked to, so I just want to sit down with him and figure out how he came to what my grade was, like mathematically, following the syllabus as you would suppose. Quit hating on the 5 absences, 2 I was sick, wrote him beforehand and he said not to come to class.

5/12/2011 10:07:32 PM

as soon as i saw the title, i knew the entire content of this thread would be bashing of the OP.

5/12/2011 10:09:24 PM

I only think this is ridiculous because you're bitching over an A-. I can understand being annoyed/sad at not making dean's list, but let's think about this here....

Would you really want your name on there knowing you had to argue for one of the grades to be bumped up enough for you to make it on said list?

5/12/2011 10:12:38 PM

OP give it up, be happy with the grade you were given. You missed 5 classes, which as others have mentioned is enough to fail some courses. Be happy you are graduating and move the fuck on. I did read every post in this thread, and still think you are over reacting.

[Edited on May 12, 2011 at 10:33 PM. Reason : Life isn't fair.]

5/12/2011 10:25:13 PM

There are no words. Except these: You ARE that douche. Take your A- and gtfo.

5/12/2011 10:28:26 PM

Quote :

"so my attendance/participation grade for the semester was a 75."

Was this 75 your actual grade from your professor, or is this your personal made up grade because 15/20=.75?

5/12/2011 11:42:59 PM

dbhawley is that guy

fuck it, he still can't see the situation clearly after everyone has brought up multiple valid points concerning his ill-advised reasoning

5/12/2011 11:45:36 PM

If you were my student and bitched about getting an A-, claiming it wasn't fair, I'd turn around and give you a C+ instead just to show you how REALLY unfair life can be...

5/12/2011 11:54:14 PM

I raised this issue with the OP, but I'll raise it with the rest of you. What are your feelings about instructors deviating from the grading rubric outlined on the class syllibus? The university requires that instructors specify how grades and determined at the beginning of a course and, by implication, expects instructors to honor the rubric.

Despite the OP's less than skillful presentation of greviences in this thread, I understand their desire to have the expectations they were informed they were working under to be upheld.

Quote :

"Each student should be informed at the beginning of the semester of the means to be used to determine grades in each course or section."

http://www.ncsu.edu/policies/academic_affairs/grades_undergrad/REG02.50.3.php

If the OP recieved the grades they said they did on the assignments and attendance/participation, why should they not recieve the A they claim is their due

5/12/2011 11:58:11 PM

Is this a trolling thread?

5/13/2011 12:01:20 AM

Quote :

"The university requires that instructors specify how grades and determined at the beginning of a course and, by implication, expects instructors to honor the rubric."

Yeah, until a class needs a curve.

5/13/2011 12:04:29 AM

by his account he missed 5 classes and claims that 2 or 3 were the result of illness and thus should not be counted...but why wait til the end to provide documentation? to me, it seems like he took the attendance policy for granted and didn't think missing 5 classes would affect his grade. it's funny because the argument is based around him receiving a B, bitching about it, then getting an A-. take the win when you get it!

i have had classes where my final grade was erred in some way, but at the end of the day any time i got it bumped up reasonably i took it and ran with it.

5/13/2011 12:05:32 AM

Quote :

"I just missed making deans list (which would be my first time)."

SHOULDA DONE BETTER IN YOUR OTHER CLASSES THEN HUH

5/13/2011 12:06:55 AM

I am not sure why taking attendance on random days is allowed.

Either do it consistently or not at all......

5/13/2011 12:14:09 AM

So, if you got an A would you make the deans list? Why dont you bitch a little harder in your meeting and go for a A+, will that get you on the list then? If I had already gone up to a A-, I would revisit every assignment you did this semester and regrade, maybe you will get a A+ or a D, who knows....I would think real hard on your participation and try to remember if you just particpated for the points or really did participate. I would do everything I could to get you back to a B or lower.


[Edited on May 13, 2011 at 12:33 AM. Reason : w]

5/13/2011 12:26:50 AM

There is no way this guy deserves an A. I don't care what the instructor says, the fact is that an A represents top quality work. If only showing up to class 75% of the time is somehow the highest standard and deserving of an A, then that's an embarrassment. If you think you deserve an A, then what about the kid who actually DOES show up every day? Are you somehow almost the same as him or her?

You should consider yourself fortunate that you got the A-, not bitching because somehow other people were treated like special flowers as well, and got a little bit better deal than you did. Clearly your point is that none of you deserved an A at all, but he bumped them a little higher than you. That's like bitching because the bribe you got wasn't as much as the guy in the next office. You don't deserve it, so complaining about the unfairness of it all is pretty weak.

5/13/2011 12:26:56 AM

Yeah, but Johnnie go a A and just came to class 10% of the time and failed every test ....but he had this professor before! Not fair!

[Edited on May 13, 2011 at 12:36 AM. Reason : w]

5/13/2011 12:35:36 AM

Quote :

"We could have 2 excused absences. Two of the classes I was sick, and have the proper documentation for them to be excused. So it was just 1 un excused absence."

No, that's not how it works. The two excused absences were those two times you were sick with proper documentation. That leaves 3+ unexcused absences. I say more than 3 because your comments imply that you were absent for more than 5 classes, you just happened to get busted on it 5 times.

Teachers have to grade according to the formula on the syllabus. I kinda get the impression we don't have the full formula. Mind posting the exact formula from the syllabus?

So far it's:
1300 total points

1000 points from assignments
300 points from participation and attendance
(no tests or final btw??? wow)

All the leeway is incorporated into that 300 points I suppose. How is that broken down? Because it sounds like that's purely subjective. You're also making an assumption that the attendance grade is just the average of how many days you were present divided by 20. E.g. Missed 10 days out of 20, so that must be a 50%. It might not work that way. Maybe the instructor does an automatic point reduction per unexcused absence. E.g. You had 3(+) unexcused absences and they deduct 50 points from the attendance total per unexcused absence. That would land you with 1150 points out of 1300, not factoring in participation a B+.

If it isn't specifically mentioned on the syllabus there's no way to tell how the attendance/participation portion is weighed. The straight number of days present divided by total number of days attendance was taken weight is extremely generous and I don't think I ever saw that. Typically, for the classes that cared, an unexcused absence would knock off 2 points from the final grade or something similar, sometimes the attendance policy was even worse than that.

Also, maybe the professor only took attendance 20 times and marked you absent 5 times BUT since it was a participation heavy class they noticed you were gone far more often than 5 times. Maybe that factored into the objectiveness of the attendance/participation grade, especially the participation portion.

I wouldn't sweat it, sounds like you got off the hook anyway and missing the deans list (over just one point - the difference between an A- and an A in one class?) doesn't amount to a hill of beans. You've already got a job, right? So that even takes bragging during job interviews about being on the dean's list every semester off the table.


[Edited on May 13, 2011 at 7:57 AM. Reason : -]

5/13/2011 7:48:58 AM

roddy hits on something here:

Quote :

"So, if you got an A would you make the deans list? Why dont you bitch a little harder in your meeting and go for a A+, will that get you on the list then? If I had already gone up to a A-, I would revisit every assignment you did this semester and regrade, maybe you will get a A+ or a D, who knows....I would think real hard on your participation and try to remember if you just particpated for the points or really did participate. I would do everything I could to get you back to a B or lower. "

the reason i decided to take a closer look at the little bitch in my class was because so many others in there were struggling but improving immensely. she felt out of place too- she felt like she was surrounded by retards and shouldn't be there.

i have much more respect for a student who starts out writing papers at like a 30 level and then brings them up to an 85 or so in 2 months. my bitch student didn't cheat all the time- on her clean papers she wrote in the 85-90 level. she never improved though- regardless of my comments on her papers she would do the same shit over and over.

so i have "dumb" students that bust their asses just to reach her writing level and she complains to me about a few extra points? fuck that. if she would have kept her goddamn mouth shut i might have bumped her to an A just because i'm OCD and like round numbers like 90 better than 89. i sure as hell bumped some of her "dumb" classmates up to 80.

again i can't stress enough the leeway professors give in the first place. unless you have some kind of assignment other than an essay/paper i wouldn't even try it. if you have some kind of multiple choice or short-answer shit that was obviously misgraded then go for it. bottom line is he probably doesn't want to change your grade, so even if you point out an error on your paper to him, he will just point out something else.

it's really a waste of time. honestly its douchebaggery on the part of both parties, but that doesn't mean it cancels out. he's the prof and can make you far more miserable than you can make him.

i'm really just trying to help- i dont think my views/outlook/practices are particularly unique. i'm not trying to toot my own horn or be tough- i'd just like you to be realistic...

def lets us know how it goes though! GL

[Edited on May 13, 2011 at 8:13 AM. Reason : but]

[Edited on May 13, 2011 at 8:18 AM. Reason : but]

5/13/2011 8:12:45 AM

y0willy0 is my new favorite user.

I agree, you say you missed out 5 times on the 20 random attendance checks...for a whole semester? You probably missed a lot more than that, and you say its a small class so the professor very likely noticed when you weren't there, and hell probably started the additional attendance checks when he noticed your sporatic attendance. Especially when you say that you participated a lot in the class when you were there...people realize when the loud smartass doesn't show up.

Take the A-.

5/13/2011 8:34:36 AM

What's crazy about this is the timing. This is your last semester in college, dbhawley, and you're just now deciding to become a grade grubber? Obviously, you've never done this before cause otherwise you'd have this situation down pat...so why now?

I'm actually with you though, by the way...if you have higher inputs than some of your peers who are getting higher final grades than you, then that's a problem that can be addressed. Of course, the professor has probably already cut you a ton of slack--you don't sound like a particularly stellar student. But, if the professor wants to give out a diverse range of grades to different students, then he probably shouldn't have relaxed on grading and given everybody 100s on all their assignments. Did he give you feedback on your participation anytime during the semester?

Personally, I probably wouldn't pursue this matter myself, but you do have a case. You're a crappyish student, but it sounds like even crappierish students got higher grades than you. If he actually does go back and try to regrade assignments, then he's a jerk. It's no secret that a lot of student work is horrible...telling us after the semester is over denies us an opportunity to improve our grade. Plus, your beef isn't with your grades...it's with how the final was calculated (compared to other students)...if he regrades your work, then he should regrade all the other papers that he assigned perfect scores to. Of course, in my opinion, he's not obligated to grade everybody by the same standard, but it sounds like he's trying to pretend that he uses a universal standard. That pretension combined with the total lack of useful feedback throughout the semester and the fact that other students with more absences made a higher grade than you is troubling.

[Edited on May 13, 2011 at 9:23 AM. Reason : Less speculation and shorter.]

5/13/2011 9:18:19 AM

This guy's future boss is going to love him....

5/13/2011 9:45:55 AM

Quote :

"people realize when the loud smartass doesn't show up"

5/13/2011 9:47:36 AM

5/13/2011 10:08:05 AM

so its been a bit since i've been back and i came to post

Quote :

"No, that's not how it works. The two excused absences were those two times you were sick with proper documentation. That leaves 3+ unexcused absences. I say more than 3 because your comments imply that you were absent for more than 5 classes, you just happened to get busted on it 5 times."

essentially this.

that the teachers give the 2 days of absences as a "i dont want to have to deal with you providing a note so i'll just give you the benefit of the doubt as long as its not on test day"

not as a "i'm giving you 2 free skip days on top of 2 days as long as you provide a note"

its an A-, if its not stopping you from graduating then theres no reason to bitch

5/13/2011 10:13:16 AM

i got an A in my class this past semester

i wanted an A+

5/13/2011 10:14:56 AM

Here is something to bitch about.

I make less money than new hires at my company, because I was picked up in a merger from a company that paid less in salary and more in commission.......after the merger I got a very small raise and saw my commission income drop by thousands.

I have been told the only way to get it adjusted is to leave and come back.....they do not want to set a precedent. I am not going to do that.

That is something to get pissed about, being screwed out of money......maybe once you get out of school you will realize there is not much difference between and A and an A-.

Also the real world does not care if you "feel out of place".....class sucks, so does work, we do them both so we can enjoy our time off and provide for ourselves and our families in the future.

5/13/2011 10:16:35 AM

Make sure you tell him you made a Tdub thread on it. He'll probably give you an A+.

5/13/2011 1:57:57 PM

I think the fact that an idiot of this caliber will be holding a degree from NC State devalues my degree from NC State.

What a goddamned moron.

5/13/2011 2:45:17 PM