OH GOD I TA'd a molecular bio lab course for grad students last semester and some of them were terrible - it was intro to lab techniques (we're a marine lab so there aren't a lot of people with molecular bio background like I have) but they were supposed to have some basic chemistry and cell biology knowledge (though there's no prerequisite, which I think is a mistake) and some of them didn't. There were 8 students in the class and 3 who were struggling. One had a great attitude and the instructor and I did extra tutoring sessions with her and she did well and seemed to get a lot out of the class. The other two were horrible. One was pleasant enough but just didn't give a shit, and the other was an absolute nightmare, she'd have a meltdown almost every week and interrupt the lecture to complain about how it was unfair because this was all too hard for her.
This comment is going to get long but this bit's funny and I have to include it: one day the instructor was lecturing about transcription and translation, and this student started whining about how it was confusing because they words were similar and couldn't we just change them? SHE WANTED THE INSTRUCTOR TO CHANGE IT SO WE CALL TRANSCRIPTION AND TRANSLATION SOMETHING ELSE SO IT WOULD BE LESS CONFUSING FOR HER.
We tried to give those two extra help outside class too but we gave up after about the fifth time they scheduled a tutoring session and either canceled or just didn't show up. I did stay late several times so various students including these two could finish their lab work, and one time I came in on the weekend so this one student could work on her project because she wasted time in class when she was supposed to be doing it. In my TA evaluation at the end of the class she accused me of never being available outside class to help her, of explaining things too fast so she couldn't understand, and explaining things too slowly and talking to her like she was stupid. Ooooookay.
I'm sure a TA horror stories post would be quite popular:) I think the worse I ever got was 'Can you somehow round up my B to an A, I really need to get into med school...'
I can top that! I had one fail intro bio lab TWICE, and the second time asked me to bump her grade up because " I'm a pre-med and I'll never get into med school if I can't pass this class...." - I WOULD HOPE NOT.
There needs to be a thing at frosh orientation where someone sits them down and explains why "but I need to pass this class!" isn't the same as actually earning a passing grade.
During my graduating semester of undergrad I was a complete wreck because I had to squeeze all of my hardest classes in. I took a particularly brutal final and at the top of the test wrote "Please curve this exam. This is going to ruin my 4.0". Wow, I was so desperate. There's a certain insanity that takes hold when you're a really stressed out perfectionist. BTW, half of the class failed the course and he gave them all a C so they could graduate, but the exam brought my percentage down to 89% and I got a B.
I have to confess, one time I tried to get my grading for an elective art class changed to Pass/Fail because I was afraid I wouldn't get an A and it would mess up my GPA for grad school. Because they said we'd be graded based on improvement and I'm already pretty good at drawing, so I wasn't able to show dramatic improvement like the students who'd started the semester further back on the learning curve. But it was really based on "did they take it seriously and put a lot of effort into the assignments" so I got an A like they did. I wish the instructor had told us that in the first place.
I got Bs in O Chem and I just had to accept that, I knew that was the grade I'd earned and to get As I would have had to spend more time studying and that was time I just didn't have.
This comment is going to get long but this bit's funny and I have to include it: one day the instructor was lecturing about transcription and translation, and this student started whining about how it was confusing because they words were similar and couldn't we just change them? SHE WANTED THE INSTRUCTOR TO CHANGE IT SO WE CALL TRANSCRIPTION AND TRANSLATION SOMETHING ELSE SO IT WOULD BE LESS CONFUSING FOR HER.
We tried to give those two extra help outside class too but we gave up after about the fifth time they scheduled a tutoring session and either canceled or just didn't show up. I did stay late several times so various students including these two could finish their lab work, and one time I came in on the weekend so this one student could work on her project because she wasted time in class when she was supposed to be doing it. In my TA evaluation at the end of the class she accused me of never being available outside class to help her, of explaining things too fast so she couldn't understand, and explaining things too slowly and talking to her like she was stupid. Ooooookay.
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LOL, right because in med school it's just going to get easier!
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There needs to be a thing at frosh orientation where someone sits them down and explains why "but I need to pass this class!" isn't the same as actually earning a passing grade.
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I got Bs in O Chem and I just had to accept that, I knew that was the grade I'd earned and to get As I would have had to spend more time studying and that was time I just didn't have.
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