Work-sensitive enough that I decided to delete it. Sorry.
Posted by Observer at July 31, 2003 01:06 PMComments on entries can only be made in pop-up windows while those entries are still on the main index page. Sorry for the inconvenience this causes, but this blocks about 99.99% of the spam the blog receives.
Well duh! Same ole, same ole.
Posted by: Felicity on July 31, 2003 05:08 PMFeff laughs and laughs and laughs.
In the last class I taught, something like this was a very common syndrome. The way graduation requirements were at the time, and some peculiarities of who courses were labeled, that class of mine was literally the last little checkbox many students needed to graduate. That means (1) it's full of students who are just there for the "capstone badge" (to put it in Pokemon terms) and (2) are in what they expect to be their final semester and (3) everyone knows both of the above. There are reasons for some of the peculiar course-structure features I had.
So I did the Dr. Satan thing in the syllabus (zip all the way to the bottom of http://www.sci.wsu.edu/math/faculty/jbrown/450forms/syl.html to see what I mean), on the first day of the class, and I still had a few clear cases of people flunking purely because they blew it off.
In my case, I didn't have to tell them to keep coming. It isn't possible to get them to consider the possibility that they really would have to come back. I figure most of those who flunked the Last Class They Needed To Graduate blew it off, and proceeded to lie on their resume's about having got the bachelor's degree.
Posted by: Dr. Satan on August 1, 2003 09:27 AMI've got a friend who basically blew off college, and lost a few jobs after they found out he doesn't actually have a BA.
One of my former student helpers got into some legal trouble and didn't graduate, his resume lists "attended XYZ, 5 credits remaining", which is the honest thing to do.
Posted by: Humbaba on August 4, 2003 04:44 PM