Post your PSA here (Public Service Announcements for Students)

[octoprof]

Post your short and pointed PSAs for students here!

Post the PSA and then any commentary, if desired. Perhaps students can learn from these.




PSA:

If you really really need to pass this course to stay in your major and this is your third try, perhaps taking it full online in a short summer term was not the best choice.



PS. No, this isn't the only course you've struggled with. Don't you know I can see your transcript? And don't you remember you've taken this course from me twice now?

[mahagonny]

Gentlemen: put your ass back in your pants where it goes. I'm the one with the grade book, not you.

[the_geneticist]

Get a day planner/calendar and USE IT!

Seriously, write down the dates of all of your exams, assignments, presentations, etc in week 1.  You will thank yourself in week 4 when you knew in advance that you have exams in 3 of your 4 classes.

[aside]

PSA:

Find out if homework is optional for your class.  Your syllabus will tell you.  If it is not optional, do it.  If it is optional, opt to do it.




More students have failed my class for not doing homework than for any other reason, either directly, because of receiving a zero on each assignment, or indirectly, by failing tests that doing more homework would have helped them pass.

[onthefringe]

Get a day planner/calendar and USE IT!

Seriously, write down the dates of all of your exams, assignments, presentations, etc in week 1.  You will thank yourself in week 4 when you knew in advance that you have exams in 3 of your 4 classes.

For best results, actually look at your planner/calendar after week 1 of the course

[polly_mer]

Get a day planner/calendar and USE IT!

Seriously, write down the dates of all of your exams, assignments, presentations, etc in week 1.  You will thank yourself in week 4 when you knew in advance that you have exams in 3 of your 4 classes.

For best results, actually look at your planner/calendar after week 1 of the course

While you are marking dates and looking at them, do a rough timeline of what tasks need to be completed when.  Writing the whole paper starting one day before the deadline is generally a worse plan than doing a couple hours of work every couple days starting several weeks before the deadline.  Actually assigning those hours for each assignment will quickly enough fill the dsayplanner.

[octoprof]

PSA

Your research paper will be much more likely to earn a good grade if you work on it over the entire period from the time you know this assignment exists until its due date.

[Thursday's_Child]

I don't remember who first posted this on the old fora, but a pithy addition to several of the above is:
  The DUE date is NOT the DO date!

[polly_mer]

I don't remember who first posted this on the old fora, but a pithy addition to several of the above is:
  The DUE date is NOT the DO date!

I know CC_Alan wrote it more than once.

[Antiphon1]

Panic on the front end not the back end.  Nothing good comes from begging during finals week.   

[octoprof]

I don't remember who first posted this on the old fora, but a pithy addition to several of the above is:
  The DUE date is NOT the DO date!

My, what a big font you have!  :-D

[Thursday's_Child]

I don't remember who first posted this on the old fora, but a pithy addition to several of the above is:
  The DUE date is NOT the DO date!

My, what a big font you have!  :-D

Aren't the options for different fonts and font sizes one of the neatest options on these new fora?

[Conjugate]

Here's a more general admonition:

If anyone gives you a rule that they claim is true for all college classes, you will get a class the very next semester for which that rule is false.

Thus, after a prof yells at you for writing in pencil—"How can you think pencil is appropriate? This is college, not grade school!"— another prof will ask you why you did your math homework in pen, and didn't you know people with sense do their math homework in PENCIL, instead of having to scribble-over mistakes? There are a few exceptions, but not as many as you think.

Thus, it is institution policy that you MUST have your final exam on the regularly scheduled day and time! No Exceptions! Except for that one class where the professor has an unmoveable doctor's appointment for that day and time, and can't find a proctor. The moral of this story is that you must listen to your professors and pay attention to the answers (except for those professors for whom that doesn't help. Sorry about those guys, but what can we do?).