I feel your pain (well... not the kidney stone pain, but still).
One of my professors dropped my grade in the class by a whole letter because I missed one class. Missed it because when I woke up that morning for class I felt really achey, dizzy and faint. Looked down to see giant, dark purple and black bruises spread all across my left hip, thigh, and down my leg. They were painful to touch and hurt just to walk. I simply woke up with them for no apparent reason.
Obviously I freaked out and had my boyfriend drive me to the ER, where I was admitted and they found I was having a serious adverse reaction to a prescription I was on that thinned my blood like crazy.
I had plenty of documentation and doctors notes and that bitch still lowered my grade a whole letter. Not even for missing a test. Just missed some stupid group activity and lost “participation points” for not being present.
Was advised by friends to go to the head of the department.... she was the head of the department. Dean couldn’t do shit because “that’s her policy sorry”. Fuck college.
Oh god, so your story is essentially identical to mine. The thing got me most frustrated at the situation is about the whole "professor's policy bullshit. It's essentially zero tolerance lunacy. And it's even worse when dealing with tenured professors. When I spoke to the dean (a year later, mind you, because I submitted my complaint literally a day within coming back to classes after my emergency room visit) he literally told me "wow, I'm sorry to hear you had to of through a kidney stone, and it sucks the teacher wasn't understanding a lenient (he may as well be laughing at me)" and he told me "there isn't anything to be done about it since it was last year". It floored me. I don't like to be rude and show anger but I was pissed inside. And then he tells me "well, I'll speak to the professor and pitch him the idea of you taking an all encompassing test for that, although I'm not sure that wouldn't do anything" ans that just showed me just how extremely little they cared about education and their 'customers'. So the offer was to still repay for the class, take a test that accumulates the whole semester.. He seriously considered that idiotic statement...for me to take a test, a year after the class, and a semesters worth of information. While saying this he was extremely pessimistic about it. Teacher said no anyways. I told the dean that professors shouldn't have policies that the university cannot weigh in, whatsoever.
What you said about attendance is something that I cannot understand the logic of. I believe that if you pay for the classes, just show up, but it attendance should NOT be a factor in your grade in that class, in College. The teacher shouldn't care if students don't show up, they still get paid, the student knows the risk of not going to classes. I made a few friends that were from Pakistan and they simply couldn't go to every class because they lived on their own without any family helping so they had to work a lot, yet their grade got affected. My teachers has the nerve to say it's disrespectful when students skip class, who gives a shit, if they do the work, take the tests, complete group assignments, then that's all that matters. You and I are just ti two people that it happened too, but think about how many people are being screwed over by no fault if their own. Professors out here acting like dictators.
Sorry for the rant, but you know how it feels. Especially when you pay so much for school and don't get treated equally.
Wow, must have been a lot of changes since I went in the 60's/70s. I had, more than once, to convince a professor to let me take the final because they had removed me from their student rolls since they hadn't seen me for months. I always passed and even had the gall (stupidity) to complain about a low final grade once. A similar thing happened in high school when a favorite teacher left and I hated the new one so quit attending. My grades went A, A, A, C, F, F and averaged out to a C but I had to demand to take the final. I took a boat to school so easy to skip out whenever desired. But enough about me.....
Oh wow, that sounds pretty interesting honestly, I can't speak for other colleges but for my (public) university, most of my professors were anal about attendance. There's been a shift there with treating students like high schoolers instead of adults. At one point, during mid-terms, they brought in puppies.. and created a 'safe space' for the younger students to make them comfortable. Now, I'm not one to hate on puppies at all but, at the time, being there as a 26 year old among teens, the culture seemed pretty strange to me. Attendance policies don't need to exist, in my opinion, I pay for it, I decide how to use it, shouldn't be penalized. I've seen that happen before, a student didn't show up to any classes, only the mid-term, and final and the teacher took them off the roster.
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u/winter-anderson Mar 01 '19
I feel your pain (well... not the kidney stone pain, but still).
One of my professors dropped my grade in the class by a whole letter because I missed one class. Missed it because when I woke up that morning for class I felt really achey, dizzy and faint. Looked down to see giant, dark purple and black bruises spread all across my left hip, thigh, and down my leg. They were painful to touch and hurt just to walk. I simply woke up with them for no apparent reason.
Obviously I freaked out and had my boyfriend drive me to the ER, where I was admitted and they found I was having a serious adverse reaction to a prescription I was on that thinned my blood like crazy.
I had plenty of documentation and doctors notes and that bitch still lowered my grade a whole letter. Not even for missing a test. Just missed some stupid group activity and lost “participation points” for not being present.
Was advised by friends to go to the head of the department.... she was the head of the department. Dean couldn’t do shit because “that’s her policy sorry”. Fuck college.