Hi everyone:
I thought you might enjoy this fun posting, just for a break from classes:
College Life
Posts about college life, students, professors, and grades.
Are you on the scent of a good grade?
Hello everyone:
It’s important to get on track and stay there as you complete your college semester. I’ve run into quite a few students lately who do not understand this concept.
They begin the semester strong, only to peter out as the term progresses. They stop checking into class (or stop showing up for lectures). They do not turn in later assignments, even though they may have done rather well at the beginning of the term.
They somehow believe that good grades at the beginning of the term will mean that the professor will automatically give them a good grade at the end of the term, even when they don’t turn anything in during the last few weeks of the course. Folks, that can spell disaster for your grade.
It doesn’t matter how much I like you, you will not pass the class if you don’t turn in an assignment. A student told me recently that she was going to challenge the grade she got, reporting me to my boss for being unfair with my grading.
The sad thing is that some of the students who have submission problems came from school districts who gave them at least 40 points out of 100 for not turning anything in. (No, I’m not kidding here. The mindset is that students can’t come back from a zero, so the lowest grade a teacher can give them is a 40, even if the assignment is never turned in).
Folks, some colleges may work that way, but the ones where I teach don’t. A zero calculated into any grade offers bad results. Don’t take that chance.
Stay on track, keep your head down and your mind focused, and get through the course with success.
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Job interview? Don’t get the deer in the headlights look
Hello everyone:
Perhaps you have spent most of your lifetime (so far) taking care of your family and home. For whatever reason, you are going back on the job market. You want to put your best foot forward on that all-important job interview, but how do you do it without getting the ‘deer in the headlights’ look?
Be prepared. Figure out what questions you think the interviewer might ask, based on the job you are applying for, and practice answering them. For example, the questions you might be asked if you are applying for a job as a baker are going to be different than if you are a medical professional.
But, and this is a big “but,” some of the questions can be anticipated. Here are some of the sample questions a friend of mine and I were discussing earlier today:
Tell me about yourself. [Can you do it in less than one minute? Practice telling someone about yourself until your delivery is smooth. Not too smoothly, as if you were reciting a memorized spiel, but have your words flow smoothly.]
How will our hiring you make our company better? [Watch out here- don’t tell them their business stinks or that it’s run by idiots. You may be talking to the individual who created it and he or she will not be amused if you tell them they’ve really messed up. Friend, they’ve managed without you for years (perhaps) so they won’t fold (probably) if you don’t come on board.]
Why do you want to work here? Make your comments from a sincere heart. Don’t be an Eddie Haskell. [For those of you too young to remember, he was an obnoxious character on Leave it to Beaver. You don’t want to be like him, trust me.]
Tell the truth. When reading a story about three accountants trying to get a job, the first two were asked “how much is two plus two?” They both answered “four.” The third candidate, who was successful in his job search, answered the boss “How much do you want it to be?” While he may have been hired, he compromised the person he was to get the job. Don’t do that.
I wish you well on your re-entry back into the world of business. Do you have any sample questions to share?
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Staying in college could determine the kind of car you drive
Hi everyone:
Did you know that staying in college and graduating could affect the kind of car you drive, the kind of house you live in, and the kind of vacations you take? It’s true.
Although there are the Bill Gates of the world who never graduate, becoming drop outs, most of the folks I know have gotten their dream jobs thanks to their hard work and graduation from college.
The U.S. Census Bureau statistics support my statement. College graduates generally earn more than $1 million more over a 40 year working life than do high school graduates, and master’s degree folks generally make more than $1.4 million more than high school graduates.
This affects the kind of car they can afford to drive. It makes a difference in the house they own and where they go on vacation (do you really want to go to your mother-in-law’s house for a week or would you rather go to Hawaii? Your call.)
Don’t drop out. Stay the course. Even if you end up working in a field different from the one you planned, it will be worth it all. The U.S. Census Bureau says so.
Best,
Dr. Sheri
What is the least I can do to pass this course?
Hello everyone:
“What is the least I can do to pass this course?” Yes, that is a question I was asked by a student just this morning. Are you kidding me?
So this gal, a graduate student, doesn’t want to do her best. She doesn’t want to excel, she just wants to barely scrap by. Again, are you kidding me? She is fine with being the “Cream of the Crap” rather than the “Cream of the Crop.” How did she get this far in the first place?
Students, this is not the way to impress your professor. So what does someone want to do when he or she gets into college? Respect your classmates and your school by always doing your best. I have an undergraduate student right now who is the antithesis of the previously-mentioned gal.
He is engaged in every discussion board. When his first postings did not meet the standards for the course, I told him and he did something about it. He is a hard worker, asks questions if he doesn’t understand something, and always strives to do his very best. When he gets feedback, he thanks me for helping him improve, not in an Eddie Haskell way, but sincerely. He is a model student.
So, what is going to happen to Miss Let Me Get By? I don’t know for sure but experience tells me that she’s going to ask for an extension of all deadlines and that, when she does turn something in, it will be done on the cheap. That is, it will barely meet the requirements and will be poorly done. But then, that’s her goal. Go figure.
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Diversity at college
Hello everyone:
One thing about college: it is a diverse place. When I stepped onto a college campus for the first time in years, it was a big surprise to find that my instructor was a female African American with a Ph.D. I was a female, white, lowly freshman. Maybe that doesn’t sound too weird yet, but we were the same age and had both grown up in the south during segregation. That’s where our similarities ended.
My schools got the brand new textbooks; hers got our old, worn out ones. When I went to the doctor, I entered the medical clinic through the front door and sat in a large, cheerful waiting room. African Americans walked down a narrow sidewalk and entered through the back door. I never saw their waiting room and I noticed that I never once saw an African American in the hallways, walking to the exam rooms.
There was a lovely park where my friends and I played. We had a brand new silver water fountain. The fountain for African Americans was brown and looked like it had been hit with a baseball bat.
When I took the Greyhound bus to visit my grandparents, I sat in the front of the bus, except when there were no available seats. There was a bright yellow line on the floor, about 2/3 of the way back. We knew who sat there, next to the bathroom. Every time the bathroom door was opened, the scent of …well, you know what, permeated the bus.
I’m glad things are different now. These days, many different folks are on the college campus. You will run into folks who agree with you and people who argue with you. Discussion is healthy. Keep that in mind and let others have their say in turn. Respect is the key. Enjoy the diverse perspectives others share. Don’t be threatened by it.
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hang in there, buddy!
Hello everyone:
it’s the time of the semester when you might have just taken your first exam. Let not your heart be troubled. You can overcome a bad first grade, in most cases.
If your first exam was worth 10% of the grade, you still have 90% of the grade to win or lose. If that 90% shows a great improvement, then the instructor might be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. You might not get an A in the course, but you never know.
How much, if any, extra credit does your instructor give? Take him or her up on the offer. (It’s only allowed at one of the three colleges where I teach.) I have a policy of keeping track of who writes the extra credit. At the end of the term, if someone has made a repeated effort and turned in all the extra credit available, I take that into consideration when doing final grading. It’s no guarantee of a grade but I know someone who had an F in a course (not one of mine) who had made all kinds of effort and the teacher gave that person a C.
If the instructor has said that all exams are a certain format, then the good news about the exam is that you know know how the teacher tests students. Keep that in mind as you prepare for the next test. Study, study, study and remember: this is a numbers game. You can win it, if you just hang in there!
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Don’t go barking up the wrong Letter of Recommendation tree
Hello everyone:
Every term about this time, I get requests for letters of recommendation. Students need them for acceptance into the college they’ve always wanted to go to or for their dream job. Some students will get them; others will not because they are barking up the wrong tree. Why is that so? Let’s talk.
Students who are always on time for class and turn in assignments that are done to the best of their ability will most likely get letters. Here’s a description of those who won’t:
Student who do the least amount of work at the last minute. If a posting has a minimum requirement of five sentences, they will write five sentences, which includes “nice posting,” “right on, man,” and whatever else they can say that says absolutely nothing. Why even bother if you aren’t going to do it right?
They turn things in after the due date, and then say they were crushed at work that week. It happens every week.
They argue over everything, berating the instructor who dares take 1/2 of one point off (out of 1000 points for the entire term).
They don’t prove reed anything because they think there writing is prefect. I’ve talked about this in the past. Folks, if you are this kind of student, don’t go barking up the wrong tree at the end of the term, to ask me for a letter. You won’t like the letter I would write, if you do.
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Getting settled but not settling for
Hi everyone:
Today’s blog posting is about adjusting to college life. Maybe it’s the second or third week of class. You’ve heard the instructor’s lectures. They seem pretty tame. Maybe you’ve even stopped taking notes because it all seems so easy. Yep, this isn’t going to be much different from high school, right? Nope, this is high school on steroids.
If you think you don’t need to take notes, you’re wrong. Nobody can possibly remember everything. One time (a very long time ago), I had a student who told me he never took notes because he didn’t need to. He was very smart, I will grant you that, but he ended up with a B in my class when he could have gotten an A. He got the lower grade simply because he never wrote anything down.
He didn’t seem upset by his B. He had the attitude of “whatever.” That was really too bad because, if he hadn’t settled for a B, he might be in graduate school today. Folks, you may be settled into your classes, but take this seriously. You might not even know you want to go to graduate school sometime in the future but why embarrass yourself in front of your boss by having to admit that you were only average in college and that you can’t get into a graduate program? Settle down but don’t settle for….
Best,
Dr. Sheri
College is a place where everyone is not just like you
Hello everyone:
One thing you will realize pretty quickly when you walk into a college classroom is that not everyone is just like you. That’s actually a good thing, since everyone brings their own point of view to the table and you can learn a lot of new things from them.
When I was an undergraduate at the University of Maryland College Park, one of the most difficult things for me to deal with was the prejudice of some of my classmates. They would take a look at me, and automatically think I was stupid because I was a “non-traditional student.” Sure, they were in college while in their teens and I was old enough to be their mother, but that was no reason to count me out.
One of the gals actually went so far as to tell me that her best friend hadn’t gotten into UMCP because of me. (I guess it had nothing to do with my 4.0 GPA in the college I had already completed. She deserved to be there in my place because she was young and I wasn’t, or so it seemed.) Funny thing: when Fox News covered my graduation five years later, she happened to be standing right next to me in all the graduation ceremony shots. I told her: “You’ll be on the news tonight because of me.” Funny, isn’t it? I thought it was hysterical.
When you see someone who doesn’t look like you- maybe their skin color is different, or they are older (or younger), or they are of a different faith, don’t turn your nose up from that person. Instead, use that opportunity to learn about someone who is different. You never know where that will lead. Maybe you will even end up on the nightly news (for a good reason).
Best,
Dr. Sheri