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Horrible College Experiences

Ivy

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Sweet holy God. SWEET. HOLY. GOD! Ok, before I even get into the new responses in this thread (which look pretty entertaining), let me say this: my professor wrote back.

Oh my sweet holy god. Can you EVEN BELIEVE IT??? Oh my god! I'm freaking getting another chance! I'm so freaking happy! Oh wow. CELEBRATION! :D

That's excellent news!! I'm not surprised, though. I think most profs who aren't total dicks will be reasonable about these things, especially if it's an isolated thing. I had to suck it up and beg for mercy a few times myself (once when my mom was in the hospital having my little sister, who is 17 years younger than me, but usually not for nearly that good an excuse). I can't remember a professor ever NOT making some kind of exception, even if I lost a few points on the test or paper for doing it late.
 

prplchknz

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hmm I'm failing this semester of school I mean totally failing and there's really nothing that can be done.

Now this one was more of a highschool horror story, but I was in study hall and got up feeling dizzy and having to pee so I got up went to the bathroom and when I walked out everything went dark brown and one of my classmates walked by and asked if I was alright I said I couldn't see so I went to the office hoping it would pass. I also refused to go home, as one of my teachers said their would be no make ups allowed as she had been allowing people to make up tests and they had been taking advantage of her. SO I would not leave because I didn't want to fail the class. She came in and told me to go home and that I would be allowed to re take the test.
 
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Sweet holy God. SWEET. HOLY. GOD! Ok, before I even get into the new responses in this thread (which look pretty entertaining), let me say this: my professor wrote back.

Oh my sweet holy god. Can you EVEN BELIEVE IT??? Oh my god! I'm freaking getting another chance! I'm so freaking happy! Oh wow. CELEBRATION! :D

Excellent! After reading your letter, I'm not surprised. You emphasized that you were concerned with actual learning instead of grade grubbing. That's bound to turn any professor's sympathies your way.
 

Mempy

Mamma said knock you out
Joined
Jul 29, 2007
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While this happened at school, I'm not sure it's technically a "college experience." But it's a pretty good story so I'll dish anyway.

Fall 1996, my senior year at Carolina. The parking permit I had only worked in a small lot outside my dorm and a strip of parallel spaces across the street. I drove an 80s-model Chevy Caprice wagon as shown below, but without the special effects:

53218478_pr.jpg


Needless to say it was hard to parallel park. But on the evening of September 5th, there were no spaces in the small lot so I had to try. The alternative was to park in another lot and wake up early to move it to my lot, but unless I went out at 6am or before there was no assurance I'd find a spot then, either.

Against all odds, somehow I managed to wedge the hoopdy into the parallel space without wrecking anyone else's car. (I did scrape mine a little bit on the rock wall next to the road, but I wasn't too worried about that.) I went inside my dorm to do homework.

There had been a hurricane off the coast the week before that never made landfall, but the rain associated with it had saturated the ground. That night, another hurricane was projected to hit our coast but it was not as strong as the one that had just missed us so I didn't think too much about it. As it happened, it passed right over us, but we never lost power and there were fratboys out in the quad playing football in the midst of it, so I figured it couldn't be that bad. I enjoyed the storm and went to sleep, assuming there would be class the next day as usual.

When I woke up, people were walking around outside, but nobody was carrying a backpack or looked like they were headed anywhere in particular. They were looking at the debris. I stuck my head out the window and asked if class had been canceled, and it had. I decided to go out and check things out myself. Trees were down everywhere, and all the traffic lights were out- evidently we had a generator or something, because power was out everywhere else besides campus.

Eventually my walk took me around the side of the dorm where the parking lot was. I noticed that a tree had fallen across the street where the parallel spaces were. Only one car was smashed beyond recognition. I was glad it wasn't mine. But as I got nearer, I realized I couldn't actually find mine- I didn't remember exactly which space it was in, but I assumed I'd be able to recognize it. Well, when I walked around the back of the smashed car, it turned out to be less damaged than the front. I saw some of my crap in the back, and my Police Benevolent sticker. The smashed car was my car- a huge ancient old oak tree had just tipped right over on it.

FEMA was giving out grants, which I could have gotten, except the car was still in my dad's name. D'oh! So he had to get a low-interest loan instead of a grant, and I paid him monthly for a "new" (old) car. My smashed station wagon made the front page of the newspaper, at least.

LOL! Oh Ivy. :D

Wow, that's a great story. Sorry, but that's awesome.

Thanks for the congratulations and support, everyone! That means a lot. :D I actually AM surprised he gave me a break when he has so many kids in his class. I figured I was just screwed this time. Perhaps it's better not to expect breaks in life or sympathy from professors, but maybe I can afford to realize that most probably do have a bit of understanding. Now that you mention it Ivy, I can't remember a professor who didn't give me a break either, except maybe one. Hmm.
 

heart

heart on fire
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May 19, 2007
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That's excellent news!! I'm not surprised, though. I think most profs who aren't total dicks will be reasonable about these things, especially if it's an isolated thing. I had to suck it up and beg for mercy a few times myself (once when my mom was in the hospital having my little sister, who is 17 years younger than me, but usually not for nearly that good an excuse). I can't remember a professor ever NOT making some kind of exception, even if I lost a few points on the test or paper for doing it late.

Yeah, but this can be hard for Fi dom to realize that the Fe/Te people are just talking hot air sometimes when they say absolutely NO make ups, no late papers. They don't see the caveat that no lates or makes ups, unless you come and make personal contact and possibly kiss my arse.:D;)
 

kelric

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Sep 8, 2007
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Sweet holy God. SWEET. HOLY. GOD! Ok, before I even get into the new responses in this thread (which look pretty entertaining), let me say this: my professor wrote back.

Oh my sweet holy god. Can you EVEN BELIEVE IT??? Oh my god! I'm freaking getting another chance! I'm so freaking happy! Oh wow. CELEBRATION! :D

Good to hear you've got another shot Mempy :). I'll go ahead and add in my story anyway... it was in graduate school, for a small discussion-based course. In previous classes, the person chosen to lead the discussion did just that... led a discussion. In this class, there were only two of us (out of 8 or so) who hadn't taken it before (you could repeat the class for credit - the topics were different each week anyway), and the professor decided that one of the "new people" should go first. Turned out I got picked. So I assumed that all I needed to do was go over the material and be prepared to lead the discussion.

I was wrong. The professor (and all of the students who'd taken the course before) were expecting something more like a 30-minute presentation (with overhead displays or slides) followed by a question and answer period where I would answer any questions they had about the topic. I'd read the material, but I showed up with nothing. I got flustered right away, once I understood what they'd expected, and to say that I crashed and burned would be putting it mildly.

Later in the semester, it was my turn to present again, and knowing what was expected, it went fine. Didn't keep the professor from remarking "well, it was certainly the most improved" when I was done. He was vaguely condescending to me for almost all of the rest of the time I knew him. Not fun.
 

Metamorphosis

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May 9, 2007
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My first semester of college I had to take a "freshman seminar," which is essentially a pointless class, so I decided to pic the easiest sounding one. Practicing Happiness. I mean...it can't get any easier than that right? :(

It ended up being a totally work laden course, with journal entries and such and made me very not-happy. So, the end of the semester comes around and what do I get? I get a C. The only other C I had gotten up to that point was in Calculus my senior year of high school. But to top it off, my professor recommended that it might be a good idea if I took a year off from school. :shock: It was only my first semester!

Congratulations on solving your problem, though! :D
 
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Met, the fact that that class even existed bothers me. We're paying all this money for college and for what? We're all adults at that point (or should be) and are there to advance our education. That sounds like a glorified study hall, except for all the busy work you were given. I feel like college has been dumbed down because so many more people are going than used to, and so many people feel it is their right to go. I'm not trying to deny people education, but college used to be selective because it was rigorous. Not everyone was cut out for college, and that used to be fine until we discovered that everyone is special.

I thought that this was the sort of thing community college was for. A resource everyone could use regardless of academic achievement to further their education.

Sorry, went off the rails there a bit :)

:soapbox:
 

Ivy

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At my school the freshman seminars were basically literature survey courses except they were based on a theme instead of an era or an author or whatever. I took one while I was homeschooled for high school, on the theme of "Escape." We read stuff like Frederick Douglass, The Glass Menagerie, Huck Finn, stuff like that. It seems like an okay way to introduce college-level literary study, looking for patterns and comparing vastly different works, etc.
 

heart

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At the last minute I changed the university I was going to because the one wanted me to take these useless freshman seminiars and I had already been in junior college two years. I went to the other university and took third year stuff instead.
 

Metamorphosis

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The kicker about freshman seminars is that you can take them your last semester in college, thereby eliminating any point that they supposedly have. I know people who have transferred multiple times and had to take another freshman seminar at each college.
 

Ivy

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Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure Carolina has them- I never actually had to take one there, I just audited the one at the college near my house when I was doing homeschool-on-paper. I went to jr. college and transferred to Carolina as a junior, and it never came up. I know incoming freshmen are supposed to read a book that is chosen every year and attend some discussion groups or something.
 

heart

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The thing I hated about it was, hey I am PAYING for this both my money and my time, (earned back then at 3.50 an hour) why should I take more of your freaking, useless classes that are never going to count to my major? Student success and stuff like that! Grrrh! They also were going to make me wait around a whole day and have someone hold my hand picking out classes.

I left and went over the other university and found I could still register and picked out my own schedule and no useless seminiars.

Of course when I moved to CA, they rejected many classes I had taken in TX and required me to take all these other classes that did not relate to my major, like ethinic studies, cultural studies, etc. It added an entire other semester onto my load. Grrh!
 

Ivy

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Isn't college (undergrad) at least somewhat about taking classes that don't count for your major? That seems like part of the point of a liberal education.
 

Metamorphosis

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The thing I hated about it was, hey I am PAYING for this both my money and my time, (earned back then at 3.50 an hour) why should I take more of your freaking, useless classes that are never going to count to my major?

The exact reason why I hate it when professors take attendance and make it part of the grade. If I choose to not come to class and learn that is my prerogative.
 

heart

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Isn't college (undergrad) at least somewhat about taking classes that don't count for your major? That seems like part of the point of a liberal education.

When you move from college to college and state to state those classes tend to stack up like cord wood. Each one has persnickety standards and won't take the other's class. Some educations end up a lot more "liberal" than the person standing right next to them in line. Tacking 24 credit hours of extra classes which are repeats to others one has already taken at other colleges in all but name and course number onto the end of one's senior year seemed a bit much.

EDIT: I understood that they wanted me to take a certain number of hours at their school in order to say I graduated from there, but I could not understand why I needed to repeat classes I already had just because... If I had to take additional credit hours to meet their standards, I would have preferred to take something new, something of USE to me rather than something I already been there, done that.

The exact reason why I hate it when professors take attendance and make it part of the grade. If I choose to not come to class and learn that is my prerogative.

Yes, I totally agree! I remember skipping class to stay home and study for a test. Some people don't have a lot of time, especially if they work.
 

SillySapienne

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The exact reason why I hate it when professors take attendance and make it part of the grade. If I choose to not come to class and learn that is my prerogative.
:yes:

Grade me on my work please, not the amount of time or effort I happened to spend, or not spend, on producing it.
 

Zergling

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Getting kicked out of an apartment. (I was going through a period of having a bad temper and getting frustrated easily, and enough yelling happened that i got kicked out.)

Having the research not go anywhere last summer, and getting told to just not show up anymore.
 

Jae Rae

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That's excellent news!! I'm not surprised, though. I think most profs who aren't total dicks will be reasonable about these things, especially if it's an isolated thing. I had to suck it up and beg for mercy a few times myself (once when my mom was in the hospital having my little sister, who is 17 years younger than me, but usually not for nearly that good an excuse). I can't remember a professor ever NOT making some kind of exception, even if I lost a few points on the test or paper for doing it late.

Great news, Mempy! Your letter was very compelling.

Ivy's right - in general, profs aren't like John Housman in The Paper Chase.

OK, my horror story. When I was a senior, I took a fascinating class in Neuropsychology at the VA Hospital in Boston. On the afternoon of our final, a bomb threat was announced at all Federal buildings, so our prof led us to the Boston Public Library. In the middle of the exam, a bomb threat was called in and we had to evacuate that building, too.

The professor was at a loss and finally decided we should all troop over to his apartment. By this time, it was early evening, and most of us were tired, hungry and frazzled; he had a date, so he left us in his apt. to finish the test on the honor system. I assume the tests were graded on a very high curve, as I barely passed, but at least one person wasn't thrown off by hunger, fatigue and two bomb threats. :shock:

Jae Rae
 

Oso Mocoso

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May 15, 2007
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Worst Undergrad Experience:

I was taking a fencing class. My usual partner was a friend of mine. He is left handed, I am right handed. We discovered that with off-handed people roughly equally skilled at fencing, a very common outcome of the match is that both fencers scored fatal strikes simultaneously. From an ego point of view, this made the sport suck for us. I mean, we were friends. I wanted to pwn this dude.

Then we switched partners. I ended up being partnered with some girl. When we were fencing, the tip of my foil slipped between her chest armor and her face guard. Basically, I accidentally stabbed her in the throat. I was horrified. I felt embarrassed, intensely guilty, and she looked pretty badly hurt. Choking, clutching her throat, etc. Our equipment was crappy, so my foil didn't have a very good guard on the tip of it.

She looked verklempt and she asked to go sit down. I ended up getting partnered with someone else, but I was shaken and I sucked at fencing the rest of the class.

After class, I followed her out, still concerned and feeling guilty. She perked right up. She was all like:

"Oh, no. I'm totally fine! I just wanted an excuse to sit out the rest of the class. Sorry if you were worried."

I thought maybe she was just saying that to spare my feelings? She invited me to come back to her dorm with her. We hung out for a little while, and she sat on her bed in a kind of inviting "come hither" way. I didn't know what to make of that, I was still too confused. I awkwardly excused myself.
 
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