Crazy Prof's and their finals!

[ufcrusher]

For whatever reason, this semester has proven to be one of the most useless and utterly annoying waste of time in my entire educational experience. I had a professor who, although we have a strict attendance policy which allows the students to only miss one scheduled class during a 2 credit class, proceeded to miss and reschedule 4 classes because of trials he was in. Then he has the audacity to give us a final (2 hours- told to use 1.5 hours to write, .5 hr to organize) which consisted of 2.5 pages single spaced fact pattern, with three plaintiffs and four defendants! He then asked us four questions each with approximately 7 parts underneath it! The first question took over an hour, the second question about 20 minutes, and so on. There was not nearly enough time to complete the damn thing.

Then I had this prof, who used me and my girlfriend as examples ALL semester long. The final? I was the entire basis for the exam!!! Have you ever tried to write an anonymous paper with every line starting with your name? I think I had to go back and change it from I to my name 50 or more times. That would have been bad enough, but once again, the test here was a regurgitation of the entire semester in the space of 2 hours. With redundant questions to boot!

I have two more to go, and if they get any worse, well who knows what I will do.

Just venting....

[sbp]

What type of class would use you as an example all semester long?

Yeah it is major suckage when professors don't give anywhere near the time needed to do things like tests or projects.

[ufcrusher]

It was a Securities Regulation class. Apparently the prof thought that I did such a good job preparing that I was the quintisential securities lawyer. What made it even more fun was the fact that for the first half of the semester she was claiming that I was cheating on my wife with my "securities partner". THe funny thing is, and the majority of the class knew, that my securities partner is my girlfriend. The prof was the only person who had no clue, and everytime she mentioned me cheating or the like, the class would errupt into a caccophony of laughter and back ground conversations.

One last thing I just remembered is that the prof came to class late (10 minutes or more) every class period! Not that we cared.

So much for a $20,000/yr legal education!

[pennypinch]

One of my buddies back in college just wrote his combinatorics exam. He went in there at 4PM...and left a little after 8:30 AM!!! The one stipulation was that they weren't allowed to leave the building. That means...yum, vending machine food!!

I have no idea what sort of sadistic bastard would write such an exam, but that person deserves an especially "warm" place in hell.

[helius]

Originally posted by pennypinch
One of my buddies back in college just wrote his combinatorics exam. He went in there at 4PM...and left a little after 8:30 AM!!! The one stipulation was that they weren't allowed to leave the building. That means...yum, vending machine food!!

Nice (re: giving you all the time you need). You won't believe how many times I wish I had more time for exams. Long exams are always more... interesting. :heh:

[pennypinch]

Originally posted by helius

Originally posted by pennypinch
One of my buddies back in college just wrote his combinatorics exam. He went in there at 4PM...and left a little after 8:30 AM!!! The one stipulation was that they weren't allowed to leave the building. That means...yum, vending machine food!!

Nice (re: giving you all the time you need). You won't believe how many times I wish I had more time for exams. Long exams are always more... interesting. :heh:

I'd like you to call a 14+ hour exam "interesting" after you've written one.

I believe the professor wrote the exam to be 5 hours long. The quickest anyone finished it in was 7 hours. That's not a test of academic learning, that's a test of human endurance.

[ufcrusher]

Well, I know I could have used more time, but I think a 14 hour exam would have been a bit TOO much time. I thought I had it bad with not having enough time. I cant even imagine having as much time as necessary, so that if you dont stay and finish it, you will probably be the low man on the totem pole!

[Grimm]

The problem with academics (the professors) is that they have their heads buried in the sand with regard to the real world. The conceited bastards think that there is nothing more important that their class, not your health, your time, or even common courtesy.
An instructor is supposed to be a professional. A professional that shows up constantly late for the customers that are paying for their time shouldn't be getting paid.
How come education is the only service industry that gets away with it? Students need to stop putting up with it.

[ufcrusher]

If only that worked. Last year there about 2/3rds of a class signed a petition crying about the unfair grading policies/ exam of one professor. It amounted to somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 people complaining (I wasnt one of them, my grade was fine) but they brought up the fact that the professor consistenly cancelled class because "he had nothing to teach us that day" and his review consisted of him handing out an outline to the course and then saying, "I dont want to be here, you should know this stuff by now, I am leaving unless you have a question" Which of course no one had. So after all of these complaints, the dean of the school finally went and regraded the entire class, increasing the grades all by .5 points on a 4.0 scale and allowing anyone in the class who wanted to, to RETAKE the class free of charge.
The professor told me that the dean just said that some of the students didnt think he taught them anything and were disappointed but took no action against him.

Thus even when the students do protest nothing is done other than get them to shut up by raising their grades.
Even profs who are panned by entire classes are still allowed back to teach because its just disgruntled students who dont know the material complaining.

What a wonderful education system we have.

[coleslaw]

My Linear Systems and Signals professor, in the first week of class, told us that we would no longer be solving differential equations using the classical method. He said, we are electrical engineers, so we will use these new methods, which he proceeded to teach us for the rest of the quarter. However, on the final exam, the first 2 questions out of 5 total stated: Solve the following differential equations using the clasical method and find... etc etc. What a total jerk he was!! GRRRRR!! And to make matters worse, I have him again next quarter for the second part of this course! :(

[helius]

Originally posted by pennypinch
I'd like you to call a 14+ hour exam "interesting" after you've written one.

I believe the professor wrote the exam to be 5 hours long. The quickest anyone finished it in was 7 hours. That's not a test of academic learning, that's a test of human endurance.

Been there, done that. Well, sort of.

I've spent almost 24 hours straight (with time off for bathroom breaks and food) writing a take-home exam before. Granted this is not exactly the same, but the exam was due a few hours after I finished it. :eek2:

It was rather crazy, but it was also an interesting experience. Maybe I'm just a masochist. :heh:

Some profs (especially the younger ones) tend to forget that people who didn't make up the tests/exams might require more time to finish them. I remember taking a (supposedly) 3 hour electronics exam... I was the first or second one out after 4 hours. The exam started at 6pm, and over 90% of the students were still in there at 11pm when they had to close down the building. :P

[ProMinx]

ok guys, most of the people posting in this thread have been affiliated with math or logic in some manner or other, but no one caught the mistake. A test running from 4 PM until 8:30 AM is not 14 hours, but rather 16.5 hours. Just thought I'd point this out...
ProMinx
ps - letting the anal retention shine through...

[hapoo]

Originally posted by ProMinx
ok guys, most of the people posting in this thread have been affiliated with math or logic in some manner or other, but no one caught the mistake. A test running from 4 PM until 8:30 AM is not 14 hours, but rather 16.5 hours. Just thought I'd point this out...
ProMinx
ps - letting the anal retention shine through...


I think thats what the + is for.
Also, after taking a 16.5 hour class, i wouldn't be able to do math correctly either :P

[ProMinx]

"a wise guy, eh? nyeaghghgh!" *Boink!*
ok, enough with the three stooges; i've been up since 6:30 this morning, physically exerting myself all day on the board course, so i'm very drained (i have to hold on to the wall as i walk down my hall). G'nite...
ProMinx