Hello everyone:

You may have read an earlier blog posting about getting the professor to cut you a break. Yes, it still happens but colleges are getting  a whole lot wiser and it might not happen much longer.

I was reading a textbook today where a young woman told her professor that her mother had died and that was why she missed the final exam. The instructor, asking for no proof of said passing, cut the young woman a break so that she could complete the semester successfully. Two weeks later, guess who he met at the grocery store? Dearly departed mom, well and whole. The lady in question hadn’t even had a head cold when she was apparently pushing up daisies.

One semester, I had a class of eighteen students. Guess how many of them had family emergencies on the day of a major project? Seven. That was just shy of 50% of the students, all of whom had very good reasons why they hadn’t come to class. My favorite excuse of all time was when one of those recalcitrant students said that her whole family had taken Grandma to the hospital because she was in pain and might, you know…. Tests showed that Grandma was constipated. I wonder if they all hung around for her treatment. The student didn’t make it to class that day, so you never know. Maybe the family was extremely close….but that’s quite gross. Disgusting, actually.

So, perhaps you may get lucky and, with enough proof, get the prof to let you slide on one assignment, but don’t plan on it being more than that. And there’s no guarantee that you’ll even get one second chance. The advice from here: do your work and do it on time.

Best,

Dr. Sheri