Not everybody wants to go to medical school, but they stiff feel a shock.
This is a phenomenon that has been extensively discussed in all kinds of professional forums and venues. It is not a matter of the OP being insensitive. it appears to be a national phenomenon that is a concern for higher education. It goes beyond simply concerns about grade inflation. It has been attributed to all kinds of factors such as feelings of entitlement, a history of unrealistic feedback, the flawed “self esteem movement”, coddling, helicopter parenting, lack of resilience. Whatever it is, it is being discussed as a widespread and troubling phenomenon. It is not simply true for one class of students or for students in one type of class. It is a disturbing trend.
@ucbalumnus Well I come from a very average high school that is 80% rich white kids. We get almost no kids going to Ivy Leagues each year, yet our students are super ambicious. Idk I mean, it was one difficult test and our teacher even curved our scores up, but everyone still felt entitled to an A even if they flat out didnt earn one. I got a low B and just accepted it and did better next time…
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Why do high schools continue to churn out straight A students for B average work and understanding of the material? W
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Because then they don’t have to listen to parents complain, or have parents complain to their principals.
Grade inflation…It is a problem. We see it here. High school kids with straight A’s and modest test scores ~ they likely don’t all have “problems with standardized testing” other than than those tests reveal that some aren’t as smart as their GPAs suggest.
But there’s more to explain what you’re experiencing with these college kids…
There are too many weak science teachers in high school, so a number of these “All A’s in high school” kids don’t have a strong science foundation when they arrive at college. On the other hand, some may have had good teachers, but not ones who “took off points” for not perfectly following the rubric for lab reports, etc (I know that’s not the OP’s issue).
Then there’s the issue that the OP is TA’ing at a top school, likely one with competitive admissions. If so, then some of these kids got into their “reach” or “match” schools, where they are now a “weaker fish” for the first time in their lives. Some of these kids haven’t processed that if they luckily got into “Top Univ” because their stats were in the middle quartiles for the school, then likely there are going to be many stronger kids in their classes (for the first time in their lives.)
It sounds like this is a Bio or Chem class since the OP says it’s in a major that many premeds take. If so, then not only does it affect the cum GPA, but it actually becomes “sort of” a premed prereq since ALL BCMP courses are used to provide that important BCMP GPA. It doesn’t matter if the class isn’t Bio I or II, or Chem I or II. The other Bio, Chem, Math or Physics classes all make up the BCMP GPA, which med schools strongly look at.
Some of these kids may have gotten “lesser grades” in Bio I, II, Chem I, or II, and they were counting on their soph grades to keep them in the med school or grad school running.
So, any of the above situations could cause these meltdowns.
I just spoke to my D who is TA’ing her first class this semester. She just spent all weekend reading and grading 90 essays (their first for the class). She reported that she “got so excited” to read the essays when the students “got it”. But unfortunately, those were not the majority. She said that most of the essays were just adequate - Bs - in her opinion. But she was also surprised at the number of students who just didn’t read the prompt, or just read the first line of the prompt. She also said that the grammar was horrible in many essays. And, of course, there were one or two students who just didn’t bother to turn anything in. She said that she didn’t like giving so many Cs, but when you compare the A level essays to the C level essays, it was obvious.
She was supposed to post the grades last night, but she’s in the middle of Joaquin and has lost power. I wonder how many complaints from students she will get when she gets them posted. The poor TAs - a thankless job.
I just find it rubs me wrong for OP to join to post this screed at the parents forum. My dd TA’d 4 semesters at an Ivy and for several years in grad school at a large well regarded public flagship and not once did she find it necessary to lecture anyone about anything like this or make any related comments. I suspect teaching is not a good profession for you.
The best teachers are excellent communicators. And empathic. My daughter struggles with math but works so hard. I am grateful that her teacher is a skilled communicator and is working himself to find the inroad into her way of appropriating this subject. In contrast, this OP’s attitude seems to be “I am going to give you the material, and if you get it fine, if not, your fault. Not my circus.”
Is it acceptable to you that your teaching methods aren’t reaching a certain percentage of the students?
By the way, my daughter never complained to a teacher about a grade she earned (even though she hates not getting a high grade), but she does have high expectations for her teachers.
Dear TA - as you have probably figured out by now, professors rarely get formal training in how to teach. Are you considering a career in academia? If so, you will learn to teach by example. I totally get that the students’ whining is tiresome, but try not to fall into the age old “us vs them” mentality that a lot of faculty have. It can certainly feel, as a college level teacher at times, that all you get for your effort is complaints. But try to see that your job is to teach, whether you are at a community college or top research university. You need to figure out how to deliver the material and expectations in a way that maintains students’ respect for you, and also allows them to appreciate and enjoy learning the material. Step 1 is to put yourself back in their shoes.
I get 0 pleasure from marking questions wrong or taking off points. In fact I hate doing it and wish every student understood everything, because believe it or not, it takes much less time to grade an exam from a student who understands everything and gets every question right than exam from a student who has things wrong to mark.
Does it bother me that a certain %age of students didn’t master the material, yes. We can try to blame instructors all we want, but that is simply how a normal distribution works. There certainly were students who got it , mastered the material , and were in the top 25% of the marks. We did have a high score of a 94. I’m sorry it breaks so many students hearts to learn that they’re closer to the mean, but that is why As are As, they are reserved for individuals who master the material. If an exam was too easy and the mean was a 96, everyone would get an A. A good exam will have an average score in the range of 70 to 80 with a normal distribution, which is precisely what we got back. Some students dominated it, and they are true A students. We can go around in circles all day arguing that most of the students in the class might have done better if things were ‘explained more clearly to them’, but then that wouldn’t explain why the upper 20-25% of the class was able to get it.
I’m very understanding when students come into office hours looking for an explanation for why they got something wrong and are simply trying to understand the material. What tests almost everyone’s patience though is when students who clearly made mistakes from not reading the problem the whole way or flat out providing a wrong answer complain about the question, feel there should be partial credit for something there shouldn’t be partial credit for, or start complaining about the course when the results they produce are suboptimal. I’m sorry grading according to a distribution hurts so many feelings when people realize they’re in the middle. If you are paying a crazy amount of money for a degree from a respected institution it should be the institution’s responsibility to maintain standards.
Again, I get excited when I see students dominate the exam. It means far less work for us, but what we won’t do is hand out As like candy because a student has plans of being a doctor, lawyer, or investment banker for Goldman. Believe it or not, a B+ won’t kill your chances. You simply learn from.your mistakes and move on.
I’m suprised how many posters are criticizing this TA.
He/she is reporting the world as it is. You want to be a physician? Vet? Pharmacist? Nurse? Physical therapist? So do a lot of other people, all of whom really, really want it, and have been lead to believe that they have what it takes to get there. But most of them actually do not “have what it takes”. Not necessarily because they aren’t smart, but because they don’t have the resiliance or the grit or the drive or the ability to take criticism (bad grade) in stride and adjust going forward.
True story: S2 (graduated Phi Beta Kappa with honors with a bio major and three minors - a smart boy) once upon a time got a 0 on a Chem lab because he opened a bottle of water (to drink) on his way out of the lab. It was late at night, they’d struggled with their results, had stayed a several hours late, it was hot, he was exhausted and he was at the door leaving the lab. BUT rules are rules. He knew the rule about absolutely no outside water or food consumed in the lab.
He was irritated in the moment, but survived. He did not complain to the prof., to the department head, to his parents. He took it as a lesson learned.
Those first non-A grades are important life lessons, particularly for young people seeking a place in professions that are high stress. Students have to be able to take sometimes harsh criticism without falling apart or seeking to blame someone else or getting a second chance.
Then there is the moment a TA learns they are just an average PhD, and the world doesn’t owe them a faculty job.
Yup, probably. You’ll get no arguing from my end. Too many PhDs, not enough faculty positions.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I was a TA in the early 80s in a well-respected science program at a large university. I TA’d for a great prof who routinely won awards for his teaching, and I won an award one year as being the “best” departmental TA (which probably just means I was sympathetic when my students cried.)
Because they DID cry and they DID fail the class. No matter how great their teacher and TA were ( ;
), no matter how sympathetic I was, no matter how many different ways I taught the material or how many problems I help them work, there were always students who did poorly. There were always MANY students who were shocked to discover that they couldn’t make As. At the same time, there were students who studied hard, visited me in office hours, asked for extra problems to work, organized study groups, and got As. The difference wasn’t what I did - it was what THEY did.
This was 30 years ago, and I heard the same comments from students: “but I worked so hard!” “but I really love this class!” “but I can’t get into a med school unless I make an A!”
Even though I’m more of a softie at heart than the OP, I have to agree with most of what s/he’s saying. And I love this comment from @dfbdfb : “a lack of student success is most often the student’s own doing”
Tears can be how the body handles stress and anxiety. No need to be a jerk about it.
Re: #15 I don’t gather the OP is at an elite U but if he is, then I would suggest he complain to the Admissions Office.
All we ever hear about from them is how many wonderful candidates they have to turn away because they are looking for the perfect class and fit. For all we hear about that, elite Us should be screening for students who don’t work hard for a grade, have never made a B or a bad test grade and who think they should be rewarded for simply studying hard. That wouldn’t be that hard would it?
I don’t think the OP is being a jerk at all. I think he/she is being honest. My D1 attends a highly selective school and she says kids complain to TAs all the time about their grade in the class/tests too hard/"my gpa for grad school will be ruined/blah blah blah.
In her experience so far she has had some really great TAs and some not so great ones. But she and she alone is responsible for her grades, not the TAs. She knows the resources to use if she needs help, but complaining is not a resource.
What percentage of students complained or demanded to be seen on the weekend? 1% or 50%? How many students really demanded the grade be changed simply because they studied hard? How many asked for help as to how to do better the next time.
Your title was condescending. Getting a C on one exam at a “top” university certainly does not mean these are average students by any objective measure. It may mean they have to rethink medical school, if the grades continue that way. .
Instant communication certainly makes kids more easily aware of their grades and many may fire off an email they may later regret. In the “olden days” you had to wait to get the test back or see the list posted on the professor’s door with your student number and grade. You had to wait until the professor had office hours or attempt to phone him/her via the department. It may be simply that these kids are reacting immediately rather than taking a breath and thinking things out.
If the student doesn’t know the content, they should get the grade they earned. But to come onto this site as a new poster specifically chide parents, telling them their kids are whiny, average, entitled students and giving the pretty clear indication that the OP doesn’t like either teaching or the students (or both) and doesn’t want to be "inconvenienced"after hours during family time. Well, excuuuse me. These are teachable moments. Not a situation that calls for mocking the OP’s new students (first midterm exam by the OP’s report). If a student is upset, the TA should be empathetic. Doesn’t mean that they should change a grade, but that they should listen to the students concerns and offer other suggestions (come to extra office hours, ask for old practice exams if thats allowed, etc).
This is, by the OP’s report, a “top school”. So its pretty unlikely that these students are “average”, by overall standards, or they probably wouldn’t have earned entrance to this “top” school. Maybe some are now having to get used to being the middle of the top instead of the top of the middle, but that doesn’t make them “average” in the overall population. Again, maybe “average” for that skewed population, but the implication that they are just “average” shows the distain this OP has for his students.
Its not absolutely necessary to make extra office hours available, but many, MANY of us who have been in the work world for a long time know that its rare to be able to work just in the 9-5, and that there is a constant effort to maintain work-life balance. Work responsibilities, the needs of colleagues or subordinates often bleeds into our personal time. It comes with the territory. If another scheduling conflict prohibits availability when the student wants, offer something else. Don’t simply mock them for daring to ask for (did they really “demand” it or is that the OP’s perception?) an after hours/weekend time. You can say no without saying heck no. Offer to review the test and see where their errors were, and what area they didn’t understand. Encourage them to come to more open office hours or study sessions. Don’t just say no, offer alternatives.
Agree that the grade should reflect outcome, not effort. Some students don’t immediately understand this fundamental shift from HS. The one and only helpful sentence in the OP’s rant is that he/she also got a bad grade from time to time but learned from it and didn’t let it devastate them.
So, OP, as a teacher, I give you a grade of C-. Room for improvement after this first midterm. Remember, its outcome, not effort. And watch for what ratings you get on “rate my professor”. Karma might not be as you’d like. Maybe you should pursue research instead of teaching, but be aware the lab can require hours that interfere with your family time. No whining. One last question: Are you an international? Do you have an accent? Can you students easily understand you? Just wondering, as this could be a factor to consider if it applies.
*crossposted with mom2and
I share OP’s dismay at whining students. I don’t think s/he is out of line, but raising an issue that parents should raise with their children before they start college. The public high schools give everyone A’s because the parents demand them. When it is finally time to do the hard work, students don’t know how to study.
The situation is getting worse. I had taught college students for 15+ years before I saw a student crying about a grade. Over the last decade, I have had several in my office, not from my class, but sent to me for help. Although I am the sympathetic professor whom they are sent to, I do think there is something wrong with a 19 y.o. publicly crying over a C. I am of the Vietnam generation, and I can’t help think of the 19 y.o.'s sent to battle while somebody’s baby can’t handle a bad grade.
Dont think most posters take issue with the disappointment re: whiny students. Its the haughty, cocky tone the OP takes, IMO. And if these parents supposedly demanded their precious snowflakes get A’s in HS, are these same parents likely to now tell the student to suck it up and do the work, or have they taught to student to push for more from the professor/TA? Its probably an overgeneralization to claim that these students don’t know how to study at all. But many perhaps don’t have the organization, time management or finely honed study skills to master the larger quantity of information and now show their understanding of the content in a different format than the regurgitation they may have learned in HS. IMO, in these situations, no one is blameless.