Annoying me. But will it matter long term?

NovaLynnx
Mon, 01 May 2017 17:09:06 +0000

It can have a lot to do with fairness and consistency. If your professor bumped up your grade because she felt you mastered the work without earning all the points, she is applying subjective feelings without the assignments/grades to back it up. Imagine if another student had the same mastery but she overlooked them in the subjective assignment of grades and just graded them on points alone…I hope you see the issues that can arise from that. I’m not saying some professors aren’t more subjective than others, and some grades are subjective to a point anyway (essays for example might earn different scores from different professors). But minimizing the “that’s not fair” complaint makes teaching a bit easier. The expectations are clearer and professors can rely on those expectations if they need to justify a grade.

As for the busy work, I can understand what you’re saying. Some professors I had did that I think to help students who were poor test takers but were putting forth the effort to do assignments. It gives more wiggle room to mess up once or twice without screwing up your grades too much. I had a very research active professor who only gave two assignments - a midterm paper and a final paper, so he didn’t grade much. If you messed up on one of those, your grade took a massive hit. Each prof has their style and their reasons. You can certainly choose not to take her classes again if you can avoid it.