Just received:
My name is _____ , my adviser has suggested that I take your class. I am a [somewhat related] major in my senior year. I understand that it is past the add drop date but I was hoping that you would sign me in. If this is at all possible please let me know as soon as possible.
I teach two 1 session/week evening classes, one of which already met and the other which meets in four hours. But, of course, I'll drop everything to guide this SENIOR through a late registration process because s/he wasn't alert enough to review the course schedule when it came out three months ago!
You're too sweet.
ReplyDeletemy adviser has suggested that I take your class
ReplyDeleteSome questions spring to mind:
Did the advisor just give this advice? (I've been privy to late advice like this before.)
Is the class full? (If full, just tell the student.)
Has this SENIOR ever had to do a late registration before? (You're assuming he or she has.) What if a class of his or hers just got canceled?
Does the student need your signature? Or could he or she just show up one day all registered and enrolled without you even knowing? (Perhaps he or she is being polite by asking for permission instead of just showing up.)
I have taught at schools where students could miss 3 weeks of class (of a 9- or 10-week course) before the add period ended, so, while I understand your frustration at the student potentially missing 1 or 2 sessions, I'm not very sympathetic to your annoyance at a rather polite e-mail.
Maybe I'm not annoyed by e-mail like this because the advising at the schools where I have taught has been almost uniformly lax (let alone often wrong). On the flip side, I once had a student show up to my classroom on the last day to add, knock on the door, and interrupt my lecture just to ask if there was room for him. Sadly there was, and he was a thorn in my side all term.
I am pointing out the bleedingly obvious, but no reply is necessary, since it isn't possible to admit him or her, so just ignore the message as instructed in the last sentence.
ReplyDeleteOK, I hear what people are saying that there might be extenuating circumstances.
ReplyDeleteDoes that view change with the news that the student followed up just about 2 hours later saying:
"I have talked with my coach and this class will be interfering with practice and it is not going to work out this semester. Are you offering [this class] next semester because I will absolutely be interested in taking it in the spring."
Yeah right, PP, the add/drop day has passed!!! EAT SHIT is what I tell them at that point.
ReplyDeleteOkay, not really. But I still love it when other people do. I always end up with too many students in my class and I have WAY too much personally collected data indicating that late enrollees fail anyway.....
It sounds like you might be corresponding with a particular subtype of the student athlete, one who usually belongs to a high-profile team, and relies on the resources of the athletic department -- "tutors," coaches -- for advice of all kinds, turning to the better, but less coddling, resources available to athletes and non-athletes alike -- academic advisor, writing center, etc. -- only when absolutely necessary. To be fair, they're often underprepared for the colleges to which they are admitted on the basis of their athletic skills, and generally pretty lost beyond the gym/field/court, which probably explains the "I can't register myself for that open seat in your course, my [athletic] advisor does it" or "I couldn't complete my draft because I couldn't get an appointment with the team tutor" excuses. But, at least in my experience, they can really derail a class, if only because they don't realize it isn't appropriate or feasible for a classroom teacher to give them what they're (apparently) used to: full, undivided attention, when and where they want it, regardless of anybody else's schedule or needs. They must learn about being part of the team and deferring to others' needs in their athletic lives, but the lesson doesn't seem to transfer to dealing with professors and/or classmates.
ReplyDeleteCC---In grad school I worked a full year as a "tutor" (not sure why you quote it though... I was totally qualified for the position, not all "tutors" are just there for looks) for a specific team, and my 2nd yr in grad school I did the same thing for student athletes in all different sports. Most of them did very, very well in their classes, put forth more effort than some seniors and grad students I knew, and actually cared about their grades. They may have been admitted for their sport, and in all cases they were very good athletes. Also... have you ever looked at one of their daily/weekly schedules? I got more sleep in grad school than they did and I barely slept. And my former belief that all athletes were lazy, didnt care about schoolwork, and in it for an easy A got tossed out the window my first week of working with them. Maybe they just need a little more encouragement to perform well in academics like they do on the field/court/etc.
ReplyDeleteWell shit, I think the main point of the student's letter was the point that he/she misspelled "advisEr."
ReplyDeleteSpelling that pathetic (in a SENIOR? WTF?) is an instant DQ, and I don't mean Dairy Queen, though I do love it so...
My responses to students' pleas ARE influenced by shit-ass spelling, because it's indicative of a lot of things, including the level of seriousness of the student, as well as general intellect. Do I really want any more ding-dongs in my classes?
Hardly...