Professors that take forever to grade your papers.

PlattsburghLoser
Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:35:50 +0000

As a TA who grades papers (though I’m [irritatingly, I’ve been told] anal about being on time for everything I do – I’ve never been late grading papers. I think my whole “must be on-time/early” for everything is teetering into OCD zone…)

Wait, what was I saying?

Oh, right. As a TA – an on-time grading one – may I please make a PSA and request that students do not hand in work that looks like a dyslexic hyperactive three year-old wrote it.
Seriously, I’ve had people hand in assignments that are written on the back of Chinese take-out menus, no lie – and on top of that, their handwriting is so chaotic. I don’t mean messy, I literally mean chaotic - like this one kid would write is answers going in a giant circle, so you’d have to spin the paper around to read it.
Other kids would write on napkins with crayons, or write on white graph paper with a bright yellow highlighter, so it was impossible to read.

Mind you, these are students at Columbia. I’ve scratched my head a few times and wondered how these students got past third grade.

The really weird part is that, usually, the kids who tend to do their homework in off the wall ways are usually the ones who get all their answers perfect and leave with an A in the class.

I don’t think the professors even check the homework after I’ve graded it (and they should, we make mistakes sometimes). I don’t think, if they did, they’d accept work written on the back of an Ikea directions manual of how to put together a lamp…

IMO, the professors (at least the couple I assist) depend too heavily on TAs. They really need to double-check that everything is correct – which would also help them see where their class is struggling, if everyone is getting the same questions wrong.

But I can get why profs do use TAs. I don’t think most students get how long it takes to grade. Most of the classed I do are pretty small, 30 - 60 students. That takes 2 - 3 hours sometimes, for that one class. So for a proffessor with four sections, all they’d do all day is grade.