Is having a bad teacher REALLY an excuse?

gypsyblue
Fri, 28 May 2010 22:11:14 +0000

I think it is a reasonable excuse… sometimes. Some professors show tough love and that’s perfectly fine; sometimes you just have to step up. But I’ve definitely had professors and TAs that made things more difficult than they should have been–extremely unorganized, vague about the material, etc.

I had an economics class where the material on the midterms and the final was actually just never discussed in class. It was partly in the assigned reading, but the prof posted it by lecture (not according to the week), and two weeks afterwards. No one really knew what to study for the final and it was extremely stressful and unpleasant.

That’s odd about the engineering students not having study groups. Engineering students are all about the study groups at my uni. They set up all over the engineering building and took over the second floor lounge in my building with their models (it’s one of the few academic-designated buildings). Perhaps there are some groups hiding at your university?

EDIT: I should add that bell-curving grades is not the norm in Canada, and is forbidden at my university. “If you fail in Canada, you fail in real life,” I guess. ;)