RANT

Oh my God i'm so pissed right now. Yesterday was the last day of school and I should be just stolked, and I was, until i read the email my finance instructor sent.

I took the final for the class Thursday afternoon. He sent an email Thursday at 2:00 pm saying that I didn't put my test form number (A, B, C or D) on my exam, and that if i didn't respond within 2 hours, I'd get a 0 on the final. I just read his [censored] email about an hour ago. I don't know if i'm totally wrong here, but this seems a little [censored] harsh. The grades aren't even due for a week, and this [censored] gives me 2 hours to resopnd because i didn't mark in a little box?

Anyways, if i get a 0 on the final, i'd end up with a D in the class. I've never gotten anything below a C. Is a D even passing? I'm so [censored] pissed off right now, and I have no idea what I can possibly do. If i do get the D, i'd like to fight it, but it just seems to me like no one will give a [censored] except for me. The semesters is over, and who is going to give a [censored] about some student and his D.

Calm down, reply immediately to the email with a simple answer and NO emotions. Then, do a quick read of "How to Win Friends and Influence People", and only then go and visit the instructor in person on Monday and plead your case.

If you stay calm, meek, and respectful, it should all work out fine.

-ml

That is awful. I really hate it in school when it becomes about procedure and form rather than the actual material (unless the course is about procedure and form, of course).

At my school D was passing, but I believe you had to get at least a C in any courses within your major. I'm not sure about other schools yet.

That's terrible. It would really suck if such a little oversight could mean that they are able to give you a zero.

Is it really that hard for them to check themselves which of the four test forms you've used ??

I would do as Mark suggests, but if that doesn't work I'd be VERY surprised if there wasn't a way to fight this. Check the exam rules. Good luck.

Thats exactly what i'm talking about. How hard would it be for him to figure out which of the 2 forms i used? And if he thinks i'm cheating or something, he can just take a look at the probably not-so-hot score i got. Even if I got a D on the actual final, i'd end up with a B in the class.

Mark is right, I gotta stay calm about this. I'm gonna try my hardest not to explode, cause if i do, i'll surely lose.

Definitely be apologetic and respectful to the professor even if he is an a-hole. Even if you talk to him and he doesn't do what you want, don't walk out of his office screaming and cursing. That will only make him more entrenched in his position.

Do you have a good relationship with any professors? An advisor maybe? Maybe one of them could intervene on your behalf if needed.

-Dylan

I can tell you from experience that a D is in fact a passing grade

At my college we have, like many [liberal arts] schools, certain types of courses we must take in order to graduate. I'm not a fan of these courses. My last semester, I took my course in Ethics (in the Philosophy department). Not only had I never taken a course like this before, but apparently I was taking it with the worst professor I could have chosen. Just to give you an idea of how hard it was, I did more reading and work for that class then any other, and on the first exam I recieved a 32% grade. What's funny is that this translated to a D! In the end, I was worried whether they would accept a final grade of D for this required course, and so I didn't know if I would grduate from college until 2 days before commencement!! That wasn't fun

Good luck with yours, though. That sucks. However I agree that it's best to send the professor a polite email and see what happens. The thing I was best at in my entire school career was my relationships with my teachers. I was extremely polite and it got me further than I can imagine.

Respond nicely, then go see him in person. If he still wants to give you a 0 after seeing him on Monday, then go to his department head. There is no way that he should give you a 0 on a test just because of some small non-class related error.

My wife got a bad score on a political science paper not because her views were not formulated and presented correctly, but because the professor disagreed with her opinion on the matter (she demonstrated how people from his native country financed a war in her native country). The professor wanted to give her an F, but she took her paper to the department head and he re-graded the entire paper for her, overriding the previous grade.

A quick story about an incident that happened to a fellow empegger I know:

He was at UT (University of Texas) studying to be an EE. One of his hardware programming classes had a final in which he had to write a four function calculator. He did it and got it completely right. Unfortunately because his "divide" piece wasn't the same as what was in the book he ended up with a 75 on the final (he got 0 credit for that piece). The professor acknowledged that his answer did division correctly, but "it wasn't the answer I was looking for" (the one in the book). Apparently this prof feels engineers don't need to be able to intuitively come up with solutions; regurgitation is what an EE needs on a daily basis. Anyhow, my friend ended up leaving UT over the incident because no one would back him up.

Apparently this prof feels engineers don't need to be able to intuitively come up with solutions

So that's the problem!!!

So what happened?

Dude. So the teacher responded to my first email (the frantic one) and he said that I'd have to email him my form number from the test, and he would call me with my grade. The problem here was the fact that I had no idea there was a form number (and i thought it was pretty stupid of him to not realize this).

Anyhow, in my lengthy reply , I explained my situation and apologized for wasting his time and whatnot. He didn't respond for almost a week so I sent him a follow up email asking the status of the situation. He responded with "You got an A, have a good summer".

What I don't understand about this is the severity of his first email. "Respond within 2 hours or you will get a 0 on your final". I mean, was that really necessary? Scared the bejeezus out of me. How do you spell bejeezus?

I'd say ``bejeezus'' is spelled ``bejeezus''. (Or ```bejesus'', but we might as well distance ourselves from the ire of those who might call ``Lord's name in vain'' stuff on us.)

However, ``hankerchief'' is spelled ``handkerchief''.

ahhhh. most excellent. duly noted.

I guess he's just trying to make people reply quickly. Otherwise they'll take ages to get around to send it back in.
Congrats on your grade though

- Trevor

Congrats! Good to see that guy didn't mean what he said/wrote. I still think it's pretty cruel of him to wait a week before giving any response though.

D stands for Degree. I suppose an A isn't bad either though.