Finals Suck

[simbrooks]

I think he was being a bit tongue in cheek as well as aiming that tirade mostly at kids straight out of high school who are just floating through college rather than those coming back to college later in life with all life's baggage coming with them - it does change considerably when you leave college and are forced to be an adult.

 

[AmyJ]

Ya... didn't mean to sound crabby.. but this whole process was alot easier first time through (18 years ago)....

 

[simbrooks]

Ya... didn't mean to sound crabby.. but this whole process was alot easier first time through (18 years ago)....

Exactly the point, you had fewer cares back then than you do now. Not saying at 18-21 you dont have cares, but they arent usually a scratch compared to how life can gore you when you get out into "the real world". I am still trying to adjust 3.5 years after leaving college

 

[CAPT HOOK]

Spent 3 hours Wed. doing an "easy" open-book exam! I know how you feel!

 

[simbrooks]

Spent 3 hours Wed. doing an "easy" open-book exam! I know how you feel!

I might have one of those in april, easy 8 hour open book, i think there are about 160 questions each requiring about 3-5mins work a piece - not fun!

 

[weekender]

amyj and everyone-

yes, im kidding. basically busting chops. my remarks were directed to the traditional student who is young and a full time student. its a grass is always greener thing. when i was a kid all wanted was to get a job and make money. i have very nice lifestyle yet i have romantic memories of school. 15yrs past my last final its easy for me to wish i was a student again. although i think my point that, life is not fair get used to it, is valid. basically i feel you cannot sweat things you cannot control, ie gov't, taxes, your boss etc... if you only worry about things you can control your always happier.

 

[NauticalbutNice]

I guess I kinda know what you mean.

I'm a student, came straight to college from high school. I also work 2 jobs to keep my self clothed and with a roof over my head. I support myself, and it does tick me off when I see students that are supported by their parents etc., especially if they make no effort to save money/pay bills/stop being a burden on their parents.

I hate it when people say to me "Oh but you're a student...you just sit around drinking all day". I wish.

Good luck with the finals.

Nauticalbutnice :fruit:

 

[archman]

My older students on the whole perform better than their younger "college age" counterparts. I attribute that primarily to the greater personal responsibility they assume. They study better and harder, but not necessarily more. They also take up higher percentages of my office hours and email correspondence, asking questions and expressing concerns. The effort pays off for them.

 

[Ishie]

I hate GIVING finals. All the bad students cry out how unfair the "system" is to them, and try every sleaze tactic in the modern U.S. to boost their grade. Hardly anyone cries about how disappointed their parents will be anymore, nor do they use the sympathetic "I'll lose my scholarship" line.

LOL. A friend of mine is teaching remedial math at a local community college, and I think it's going to drive her to drink. She says the next time she hears someone whine "Why didn't we go over questions like this in class???", she's going to take hostages, particularly when she did the exact problem on the test in class, asks for their notes, and they say they don't need to take them. I've seen these no-note takers in many of my classes and all but one of them (who was a genius) did abysmally.

At Davis (liberal, large school, which I love dearly), I did hear a lot of freshmen who had not yet recovered from high school complaining that their instructors weren't giving them a fair break because they didn't like them because of that one day they were talking in class/came in late... even as a freshman, I had to laugh at that. Three hundred students in a class and the instructor knows one person well enough to discriminate? Please.

Nowadays, its popular to use some variant of legal intimidation, or claim a vague social or medical condition, that of course they have no documentation for. Funny thing is, I never hear about this junk until THIS WEEK.

Some professors don't really help this though and can make life rough for other professors. I did well at Davis, but chemistry isn't my strong point, and organic chemistry was just killing me. I went to the instructor (early after the first midterm) to ask for help or tips because I was studying harder than I had for anything else, and it wasn't affecting my grade. She smiled sympathetically and said "Maybe you have a learning disability?", then directed me to the testing center (didn't go). Grrr.. Got a B in the class anyway. Found a super-smart guy willing to tutor me.

I think in the four years I was at Davis, I only saw one final exam that was truly unfair, and only because it was about an hour too long for our time block. Fortunately, the entire class had hideous trouble with it, so the curve evened it out, though left a lot of us really sweating for a few weeks.

So despite being a recent student, I sympathize.

 

[Ishie]

Oh, another thing...

I LOVED college, but it wasn't easy. Not a paid vacation for me (now paying off student loans, woo hoo!), and I was never up on partying, but I liked learning and my major (Anthropology) surprisingly primarily featured a group of students genuinely interested in the subject.

Right now I have a tedious temporary job, and I miss college, not because it was vacation, but because it was HARD. A chimp could do my current job. I knew I needed to start looking elsewhere when I was getting nolstalgic for doing physics problems. It does beat sitting here listening to my brain cells die. Thank goodness for scubaboard! Crossing my fingers for the criminalist or forensic tech positions I just applied for with hopes of medical school in August 2006.