I’m letting you know that a few of your idiots got on a bus and made their way down to my neck of the woods. They appear in my office but I’m sure they are just lost. Let me know what address to staple to their foreheads so I can reunite them with their loving professors. I know they miss you so.
Confident Carl: Yes, I’m sure you did great in high school chemistry. You have to take freshman chemistry, just like everybody else. No, I don’t need to see all the notes you took in high school. No, I don’t need to see your high school transcript. No, I will not call your old chemistry teacher. You still have to take this class. Suck it up, get an A and stop bothering me.
Well, Carl got an 82% on the first exam. Lots of silly mistakes but he knew everything, he assures me. Don’t suck it up Carl, just suck it.
Obvious Ollie: “Where does Dr. Smith hold his office hours?”
This question can't be that dumb, can it? “Um. In his office.”
I assumed the student would follow up with, “That's what I thought but she’s not there.” or “Of course, but where is her office?” Any suspicion of intelligence was unfounded.
OO: “OK! Just wondering. Thanks!”
Sugar, there's a bus seat with your name on it. On a bus. At the bus station.
Reading Ryan: “I had trouble remembering the stuff you talk about in lecture. Is there a book that has that information in it?”
I know that Ryan must attend some other school. (God, please don't let me work at a school that admits this kind of stupid.) I’ll still make him by a textbook for my class at our bookstore before I drop him off at the Greyhound station.
A possible explanation for Ollie's question: perhaps he's had (at your institution or elsewhere) professors who *don't* have offices, or at least not offices uncrowded enough in which to actually hold office hours? I've never been somewhere where adjuncts didn't have some sort of office, but I've certainly heard tell of such situations (and the MLA keeps issuing statements saying that adjuncts should have offices, mailboxes, etc., which suggests that such statements are necessary). I don't know about your neck of the woods, Ben, but in some places it's entirely possible to get several semesters into college without ever having a non-adjunct professor.
ReplyDeleteI've also known proffies who simply prefer to hold their office hours in the campus coffee shop.
I thought about that but I think we are dealing with a student really not knowing which way is up. She's a sophomore and knows her way around our department. All of us have offices here.
ReplyDeleteHmm. . .maybe she was planning to steal your next exam (or your phone, or whatever) and was surprised to find you in your office?
ReplyDeleteOr she has a crush on you and needed a topic of conversation?
Or maybe, yes, she's just lost, intellectually as well as (apparently) physically.
1. Very possible, it's happened before.
Delete2. Shiver.
3. A safe bet.
At my college, some of the scientists hold their office hours in labs or the department tutoring center. Or maybe she has taken classes in departments that do something similar. Just a thought. I can also see where she might have had a moment, such as the student in the local pizza hangout recently who went up to the counter and earnestly asked, "How much are the free refills?"
DeleteI don't think any of them are mine, by the way, though I may have encountered Carl's cousin (who did very well in community college) and Ryan's brother (who wanted to know whether he really had to buy the book). Then there was Ryan's sister, who wanted to know whether there would be a test on the chapters I'd just had them read (in a book with a decidedly how-to focus). She looked a bit puzzled when I told her that she was simply expected to apply what she had read in completing other assignments.
ReplyDeleteThe picture... it's COMING ALIVE!!
ReplyDeleteoh god
I find myself holding up the textbook several times a week. "It's in here," I say. "The shit I talk about. It's in here."
ReplyDeleteThis whole "do I have to buy the textbook" thing is becoming irritatingly common. Look, you lot, I already picked the cheapest book I could find. I did that. I did that for you. Well, for you and because I hate textbook reps and would spit in their faces if it weren't for the tasty sandwiches they bring to the department. But still. Buy the damned book.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. My college has even prohibited our ordering any "optional" books and allows us to specify "no textbook" as a choice, but I STILL get the "Do I really need this book?" question at least three terms a semester.
Delete"Of course you don't *need* this book. You only *need* this book if you want to pass the class!"
DeleteThey didn't arrive by Greyhound (a dog of a way to travel). They fell off the turnip truck. You may keep them: I do -not- want them back.
ReplyDeleteI have Ollie's sister in my class. I was informed, "I am unclear which assignment to do this week." This was on their class bulletin board. This bulletin board has a syllabus. I also reviewed the assignment in class. I also hand them a paper copy on day 1 of class. Do you know that 11 students viewed it and apparently couldn't help this student. Maybe they were just in as much shock as me.
ReplyDeleteThey are all mine. All of them. And their sisters and brothers and other kinfolk. I sent them on a "scavenger hunt" so the six students who give a crap and I can get some work done. Please do not send them back, just drop them off near the bus station and pray for natural selection to work.
ReplyDeleteAll their lives they've been told, "There's no such thing as a stupid question."
ReplyDeleteThat's a phrase I'd like to see pass out of usage, along with others like "It's OK, just so long as you try" or "Opposites attract." (Actually, opposites do attract. The attraction just doesn't last.)