College Life

Posts about college life, students, professors, and grades.

A Tale of Two Students

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hi everyone:

When my kids were little, I used to tell them “we can do this nice or nasty, but we are going to do it” whenever I wanted them to do something they didn’t care to do. I’m the mom, they’re the kids, and they didn’t have a choice.

Well, the same thing can be said of college students. This past term I had a boatload of students and in that mix, at two different colleges, I had one student who shall be known herein and forevermore as “the student from the fiery place” and another student who was very diligent with his work.

One student demanded constant extensions… the other got his work done.

The end of the semester came for both colleges. The SFTFP was miserable till the bitter end. The other student sent me an email towards the end of the class, apologizing for missing a couple of deadlines in the last couple of weeks of the class. He explained that he wasn’t asking for any special consideration or extensions, but told me that he wanted to explain why his work had not been as prompt as previously had been the case. He apologized for appearing to be lackadaisical but told me that his work had been especially demanding and he missed some rough draft deadlines. He assured me that he would meet the final deadline and was completing his tasks with all of his might.

Guess which student I offered grace to?  Yep. It wasn’t SFTFP, for sure. This is something to keep in mind when you are dealing with professors. The second student had met every deadline and was an excellent student at the top of his class. He never asked for any special treatment and was always very pleasant with both me and with the other students in the course. Food for thought.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Don’t tell the professor what to do

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

I have had a couple of students who took the wrong approach to asking me to overlook their lack of performance in the classroom. They told me what to do. That was not a popular course of action.

One of them told me to give him back some lost points because “he’d been too busy to do the work on time.” I wonder if he’s ever seen the poster that talks about failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. Who knows? Attitude is everything and I have been known to cut students a break, if they are nice and apologetic, but not in an Eddie Haskell way. (See Leave it To Beaver for a cultural explanation here!)

Another told me she deserved another chance because she had sent her essay to the Writing Center, gotten back a marked-up copy, and had posted it in error, without fixing it. Yeah, that might have worked but it was the third time it had happened (posting a marked-up copy that she didn’t bother to fix) in the last six weeks. She also wanted my feedback and the chance to fix the document again (that would have given her how many re-writes on one assignment???)

So, what do you do? If you mess up, admit it, apologize, and ask the professor if he or she will give you a break. If this is the only time it happened, you might get lucky. If you are a student-with-a-problem-of-the-week, it is not as likely.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Avoiding the Freshman 15 like the plague

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hi everyone:

One of the biggest challenges a new or returning college student can face (or sit upon) is the Freshman 15. The thing is, these extra fifteen pounds can strike in your freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, or graduate years without warning.  They are equal-opportunity pounds.

Students have a tendency to feel hungry when they are up late studying, so it’s very easy to order in a pizza to munch on…add in Goldfish (the crackers, not the animals) and you can gain weight pretty rapidly. (When my son graduated from college, he lost 17 pounds because he was no longer snacking his way through the night to keep awake).

So how do you avoid them? Well, as good as the sandwich shown here looks, a salad or low-cal smoothie is better for your waistline. This meal probably packs a 2,000 calorie punch,  which is enough to derail any good intentions. Adding fries and a soda can make it two days’ worth of calories, no problem.

It’s also important to exercise while you study. When I was preparing for my Ph.D. qualifying exams, I studied for six hours a day, every day, for two months (please note that I had been studying every day for the six months before that, as well). I wrote up 600 note cards and kept them on my treadmill, where I walked and studied. when I got tired of being stuck indoors, I learned to hold them in my hands at just the right angle so that I could walk on my front porch without falling off but so that I was still able to read and memorize the cards.

My study group and I had prepared study guide documents. I blew them up into 18 point font and taped them to the walls near my treadmill so I could run and get 90 minutes of study in before breakfast.  It was a wonderful sense of accomplishment and a superb way to start the day.

What ideas have you used to avoid those unwanted pounds? I would love to hear your ideas!

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Finishing Strong or Finishing Wrong

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Do you see the look of joy on this young woman’s face? She just finished climbing a mountain (or even a molehill) and she knows she’s been successful.

College is like that. You work hard all semester and you finally reach the end of the term. You have turned in all of your work in a timely manner, you have studied for your exams, and now you are ready to celebrate.

Or perhaps you aren’t quite there yet. You have a couple of weeks to go, and the work is starting to pile up. You haven’t quite met all of the deadlines and you’re starting to get pretty far behind. Maybe you are like one gal I know who tells me that she’s creative and she can’t be creative on a deadline. Therefore, deadlines are nice suggestions but they don’t really matter.  Nope, sorry, that’s not going to fly.

When you get out into the business world, your boss is not going to want to hear you tell him or her that you can’t be creative on a schedule. Your talent may be outstanding, wonderful,  and superb but, if you can’t get it done in a timely manner, you won’t win the prize. Imagine a track and field star who says he or she will show up to run the race tomorrow because today isn’t doesn’t feel right for a win. Tomorrow will work, unless it doesn’t. Sorry Charlie, you aren’t going to get the job. Life doesn’t work that way.

How do you chose to finish the race? Strong or wrong? It can make all the difference in the world.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Recalcitrant wipers

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Have you ever gotten stuck, really stuck in a rain storm and not known how to use your car’s windshield wipers? Maybe you’ve borrowed a friend or family member’s car. Perhaps you have rented a car to take you to that first big job interview.

And then it begins to rain. Folks, that’s not the time to search for the location of the wipers. It’s also not the best time to figure out how to turn them on (every car is different, or so it seems).

I was on a trip to Florida, which is known for torrential rainstorms, when suddenly it began to pour. I was about an hour and a half from my condo when the storm struck and it was as if someone was standing by the side of the road, pouring water on my car.

It was dark, which didn’t help matters one iota. The streetlights were few and far between which made things worse. And then I couldn’t figure out which way to flick the wiper switch. (It was not intuitively obvious!)

Here’s my personal recommendation: figure this out before you get on the road, especially if rain is forecast. Have you ever had this challenge? It’s not fun, trust me. Next time, perhaps I’ll talk about trying to open the gas door on an unfamiliar car, and wanting to refill your tank before you run out. Another issue: the location of the gas gauge isn’t always where you expect- you could be looking at the engine temperature light instead. (And you thought you were just getting great gas mileage!)

Have a great day and feel free to share your tales of woe.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

You are on the brink of something great

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Do you ever think that something great is about to change your life forever? What a great way to see life! I saw a picture today of small children who were celebrating a ball game. They were literally jumping for joy.

That took me back to a picture I bought last week. It is a simple white-framed shadow box print with a bright pink background and the following words embossed in gold:

Something good is about to happen

I hung it in my bathroom, so that I can see it first thing in the morning and the last thing at night, and all those in-between times when I walk into the room. It lifts my spirits each time I see it.

Something good is about to happen

It wasn’t expensive, at only $14.99 (and less with a coupon discount at Bed, Bath, and Beyond), but it says something that is exciting. Maybe you are the first person in your family to attend college. Maybe you’re scared, excited, and thrilled, all at the same time.

Something good is about to happen

Maybe you’re passing from high school into college or college into grad school. Maybe you just finished your Ph.D. and have been called “Dr.” for the first time. Maybe you just got that notice of a scholarship in the mail or a great job offer or the proposal you have been waiting for and now you are newly-engaged.

Something good is about to happen

Go for it, my friend. Let me know what your “something good” was for today. I would love to share your joy because…

Something good is about to happen

Best,

Dr. Sheri

 

Who me? Study?

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Sometimes I come across students who think they don’t need to study. Ever. Folks, that is a bad assumption.

Let’s say that you managed to get by in high school without ever cracking a book. Maintaining that same attitude in college could get you…kicked out for academic failure. The classes are harder and sometimes you only have a final exam. One of the speech classes I have taught only has the final, which covers the entire book.

Please don’t be of the opinion that you can memorize everything a teacher says by simply looking at her, without taking notes, and cough that up on the final. It’s just not going to happen. Your odds of learning everything from simply listening and never opening the book are slim to none. I had a student a few years back who said he could do it and tried to prove it. The first exam went well. The following exams did not turnout as he had hoped.

So what do you do? Read the chapter before class so that you aren’t seeing the material for the first time.  Take a lot of notes in class. When you get home (or wherever you’re studying), go over the notes with your textbook and correct anything you wrote down wrong. Review your notes once a week, so that by the time you reach the exam, you can make an educated guess on anything you aren’t sure about. As an instructor, I am not trying to fail you. Some of you will do just fine on that, yourself.

Should you study? Absolutely!

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Getting along with the professor or getting in trouble

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

A good student can really “make the class” for a professor. You figure, we spend hours preparing for the class and grading papers that range from superb to …well, you don’t want to know. Some of us are adjuncts, which literally means “add on” professors. We have excellent educations but the school we teach for doesn’t have any openings for full time professors or simply does want to pay the higher (make that, much higher) pay scale or pay the benefits that hiring us full time would require.

So, we work for a lot less money than we could make in private industry and we accept that. Why? Because we love what we do. We feel that teaching is a vocation, not a job. You may make more money than we do, even if we have four degrees more than you currently hold.

What does this have to do with getting along with the professor or getting into trouble? It’s simple. After I have worked and slaved over your paper to give you feedback that I hope will help you, don’t clobber me with a bad review at the end of the term. Don’t call or email my boss and tell him or her what a lousy job I am doing and how you hope I will be pushing up daisies soon. I will hear about it and it won’t endear you to me for the rest of the semester. You will immediately and forever more be on my “naughty” list.

Instead, try to understand why I gave the feedback I gave. Email me with nice comments that seek to reach out and understand. When I have gotten an email that is kind, I am more likely to go back and re-visit the grade I gave you than I would be if you yell at me or try to tank my reputation.

Keep in mind: I am not doing this for the money. I am doing it to help you.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Plan ahead when traveling during the semester

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Sometimes students go on a trip during the term. I do not recommend it, especially if you are going on vacation. You will get behind and you will not have an excused absence.

Occasionally your work requires that you go, so you have no choice. It can be difficult, particularly if you are out of the country and have limited internet access for your online course.

Last July, I was out of the country for about a week and a half, in spite of teaching four courses. I always access my classes every day of the term, so I had to be available on a daily basis. Here are my suggestions for success in traveling while a student (or a professor!):

First, make sure that your computer battery is completely charged before you take off. Do not depend on electricity being available to you in-country. It might not be.

Nest, test your electricity adapter in the new country on something less important than your computer. (I tried mine out on my hair dryer and electric curlers. Both were fried the first time I used them in England. The adapter I was sold in the US did not work properly in England. I began using the hotel’s hairdryer but had to buy new curlers because I disliked the smell of burning hair.) The good news is that I have a new hairdryer here and I have new curlers to take with me the next time I visit merry old England.

My computer battery was down to 12% before I found a store that had the right adapter. It was a very stressful time and we had to go to four different cities to find an Apple store that had the right adapter for my brand new Mac Air Book. New is good but it is not always great because little towns and villages do not always have the up-to-date item that will interact well with your new computer.

Finally, check into your class and your teammates (if you have them) whenever possible because you never know when the Internet of your host country will be down.

What ideas can you share?

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Just showing up won’t get you a passing grade

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

I was talking with some colleagues this morning and they were sharing how students think that merely showing up for class and chatting up the professor is sufficient to get a passing grade in the course.

Folks, that is not correct. Welcome to college. There are some low-performing schools that may have let you get away with that in high school, but if you show up but don’t turn anything in, you won’t make it successfully through the semester.

I was teaching the first day of a public speaking course and a student asked if she could be excused from all of the speeches. In the very least, she wanted to “skip” doing the speeches. Since they accounted for 60% of the grade, I told her that she could not pass the course with only 40% of the work complete. She never came back.

Another gal told me that she “chose not to do the group speech.” It was a speech worth 20% of her grade. As a result of not doing this speech, she also couldn’t do the team review of the way her team worked together on the speech (another 10% of the grade), and she couldn’t get a positive review from her teammates (10% of the grade). That dropped her grade to a 60%, which was a very low “D.” She missed more than one point on her exams, but even a one point loss would move her to a 59%, which is an “F.”

After the semester ended, she sent me a “how dare you flunk me” email (my favorite kind- not!) and berated me for failing her. I explained the math. She never emailed me back.

Folks, show up and do the work. You won’t like the results if you just sit there.

Best,

Dr. Sheri