"College Student Will Full Time Job Criticizes Professor"

[Wahoo Redux]

COLLEGE STUDENT WITH A FULL-TIME JOB IS CRITICIZING A PROFESSOR WHO WON'T LET HER SUBMIT ASSIGNMENTS VIRTUALLY, AND TIKTOK IS DIVIDED

"Can someone please explain to me where these college professors seem to be getting the audacity from? Because I just had a meeting with my professor, and I had emailed her the day prior to that asking her for feedback about an assignment I had, and she insisted that I come in person during her office hours to receive said feedback," Maryam says.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Anyone who rushes to tik tok to share this with the world is probably a bit unhinged, so who knows what the real story is.

[lightning]

It sounds like the student wants online asynchronous college. There are many choices for that kind of learning. The student picked the wrong kind of college. That's the student's fault.

[Caracal]

It sounds like the student wants online asynchronous college. There are many choices for that kind of learning. The student picked the wrong kind of college. That's the student's fault.

Well, no, the student doesn't seem to have a problem with going to classes, the issue is with meetings that can't be virtual and assignments where a physical copy is due outside of class periods, at least I think.

I can understand preferring in person meetings and even not mentioning the virtual ones as an option, but if a student says they can't make it in, and asks for a virtual meeting instead, it seems weird and rigid to refuse. You're in your office already, just open up zoom. Don't be a jerk.

[Puget]

It sounds like the student wants online asynchronous college. There are many choices for that kind of learning. The student picked the wrong kind of college. That's the student's fault.

Well, no, the student doesn't seem to have a problem with going to classes, the issue is with meetings that can't be virtual and assignments where a physical copy is due outside of class periods, at least I think.

I can understand preferring in person meetings and even not mentioning the virtual ones as an option, but if a student says they can't make it in, and asks for a virtual meeting instead, it seems weird and rigid to refuse. You're in your office already, just open up zoom. Don't be a jerk.

Agreed-- I burned out on zoom same as everyone else, but it really is more convenient for short office hours meetings-- even if students are on campus, they don't always have time to traipse to a far flung office then back to their next class. Having a permanent office hours link posted increases access and usage, and isn't any more work for me.

[secundem_artem]

Seems like both the prof and the student have decided this is a hill worth dying on.  I can't speak for the student, but were I her prof, I'd happily meet online or let a paper be submitted electronically.  It would make life easier for both of us.

[mleok]

Seems like both the prof and the student have decided this is a hill worth dying on.  I can't speak for the student, but were I her prof, I'd happily meet online or let a paper be submitted electronically.  It would make life easier for both of us.

Indeed, this is a strange hill to choose to die on. Even as a mathematician, where office hours do benefit from having a big shared blackboard to discuss problems on, I wouldn't mind meeting a student over Zoom during my regularly scheduled office hours, and I much prefer it to a student who expects me to trek onto campus at an odd time just to meet them in-person.

[Wahoo Redux]

It seems like a perfect confluence of reactive elements: a student who expects the universe to turn around her and her issues and a prof who is simply an unreasonable jerk.  Happens all the time.

[lightning]

It sounds like the student wants online asynchronous college. There are many choices for that kind of learning. The student picked the wrong kind of college. That's the student's fault.

Well, no, the student doesn't seem to have a problem with going to classes, the issue is with meetings that can't be virtual and assignments where a physical copy is due outside of class periods, at least I think.

I can understand preferring in person meetings and even not mentioning the virtual ones as an option, but if a student says they can't make it in, and asks for a virtual meeting instead, it seems weird and rigid to refuse. You're in your office already, just open up zoom. Don't be a jerk.

It's up to the prof to decide how a prof's time is used, especially in in-person classes, and especially how the profs time is used outside of scheduled classes.

Like I said, if the student wants flexibility, they picked the wrong kind of college. There are plenty of colleges that offer the flexibility that the student seeks. If a prof wants to be in-flexible, then that's their prerogative.

Perhaps, the pandemic opened up too many easy outs for students, especially all the b*ll$h1t, hy-flex stuff, and now some of us are reacting against it by being rigid. I still get students who get pissed at me because I don't offer virtual options as if it's still 2020/21. They even complain to admincritters. Fortunately, most of the admincritters above me recognize the loser students.

In any case, the prof decides, even if it means being a jerk. Don't like it? Sign up for UoP, Purdue Global, etc.

[Wahoo Redux]

I agree that it is up to the prof, who is the professional paid to orchestrate the class, how to use her time. 

But at the same time it does not hurt to help a student----even an entitled jerkface----work around their schedule a little bit. After all, the young woman in the video really is trying to better her life under a good deal of stress; her requests are not completely out-of-line, just maybe annoying; and her attitude is that of a spoiled brat, but I can kind of understand it----she's paying tuition and being met with a brick wall.

Every campus gives lip-service about how dedicated their faculty are yadda yadda, this has to be very bad PR for the campus.

[lightning]

I agree that it is up to the prof, who is the professional paid to orchestrate the class, how to use her time. 

But at the same time it does not hurt to help a student----even an entitled jerkface----work around their schedule a little bit. After all, the young woman in the video really is trying to better her life under a good deal of stress; her requests are not completely out-of-line, just maybe annoying; and her attitude is that of a spoiled brat, but I can kind of understand it----she's paying tuition and being met with a brick wall.

Every campus gives lip-service about how dedicated their faculty are yadda yadda, this has to be very bad PR for the campus.

Professors can avoid problems like this by being very clear up front about a professor's obligations and a student's obligations. I'm very clear in my syllabus and on syllabus day that as a college student enrolled in my class, my class is a priority for a college student's time. I also make it clear that there is nobody in that classroom that is busier than me. I tell them right away about my expectations, including how much time a student needs to set aside and when and where and how. I follow up with an invitation to drop the class, if they cannot meet those expectations. Case closed.

But I also tell all students that they can shop for other professors that may be more flexible. I would even direct them to any asynchronous version of the course that may exist (OK, I lie, one doesn't exist for my class, but if it did, I would direct a student to take that class.) Also, students can shop for other majors that may be more flexible, but are still related to the students current major. I have done this and recommended the degree-completion version of the degree program of which my course is a part. Finally, any student can shop for another college that may be more flexible (this is where I recommend UoP or Purdue Global). Students that work full-time have choices.

[Wahoo Redux]

I tended to be very flexible with these sorts of scenarios when I taught simply to be nice to people.  I do understand that some people have different philosophies about how a college classroom should be run, that "nice" is somehow abrogating responsibilities or simply silly, and that's fine with me.  I just never saw the harm in helping students with their busy lives, especially since my last school was full of people who worked full and PT, as long as the requests were not unduly burdensome.

As I posted before, the scenario in question seems to be two jerkish people running into each other and one posted about it online, partly to her determent.   

[marshwiggle]

Professors can avoid problems like this by being very clear up front about a professor's obligations and a student's obligations. I'm very clear in my syllabus and on syllabus day that as a college student enrolled in my class, my class is a priority for a college student's time. I also make it clear that there is nobody in that classroom that is busier than me. I tell them right away about my expectations, including how much time a student needs to set aside and when and where and how. I follow up with an invitation to drop the class, if they cannot meet those expectations. Case closed.

Absolutely. And institutions have to clear on that as well, that "in-person" classes, for instance, require students being there in-person. The more consistent the rules are, the more quickly students will learn to follow them.

[lightning]

Professors can avoid problems like this by being very clear up front about a professor's obligations and a student's obligations. I'm very clear in my syllabus and on syllabus day that as a college student enrolled in my class, my class is a priority for a college student's time. I also make it clear that there is nobody in that classroom that is busier than me. I tell them right away about my expectations, including how much time a student needs to set aside and when and where and how. I follow up with an invitation to drop the class, if they cannot meet those expectations. Case closed.

Absolutely. And institutions have to clear on that as well, that "in-person" classes, for instance, require students being there in-person. The more consistent the rules are, the more quickly students will learn to follow them.

Also at my uni, our advisors dissuade students from working too much, especially working full-time, if students have a challenging class schedule. Of course, that means we don't have a very large non-traditional student population. So the problem in the Tik Tok video may be more related to a university that implicitly over-promises working around/working with student schedules.

[Istiblennius]

I'm still a little unclear on what happened here, in part because the video was so obnoxious with the kind of "let me talk to the manager" head bobbing and wrist snapping that I think many of us are just over, that I kind of tuned out half of what she was saying. The "where do they get the audacity?" cuts both ways.

I got the sense that the student wanted feedback and the professor wanted the feedback to happen in a meeting where they could go over the project together? I think that could be done over zoom, although I don't completely understand the nature of the project and whether that would preclude a zoom conversation. If this was just about turning in the assignment or about a check in meeting, it does feel a bit unreasonable of the prof to not permit that. Honestly, with this student, having electronic records in the LMS of submissions and recordings of meetings would likely be in the prof's best interest.