Bio lab. Warning: whining ahead.
Usually, I like bio lab. We do neat stuff and I learn cool bio techniques and it's hands-on. Great, right? I complain about the reports, since we've about one per week and they're about 10-24 pages long, but I'm getting used to them and it turns out that they're really not so bad after all. I still don't like that we poor science students usually get only half a credit for doing more work inside (based on hours per week) and outside of class than many other classes, but I can live with that. It is only lab class, you know. But! This week, I have been angry about a number of lab-related things. I'm glad I did enough extra work in advance that I don't have to think about lab homework for another two weeks.
I missed my bio lab midterm due to sleeping in past the alarm on Friday. I had gotten up at five in the morning on Thursday to spend fourteen hours fighting for same-sex civil marriage at the Boston courthouse. When I emailed my professor to ask if I could make it up, she emailed me back with:
"yes, i know you missed the exam. i'm not sure what to do and am leaving for the day. we can talk on monday afternoon."
I was surprised and pleased to find that she was thinking about letting me take the test late. I eagerly awaited her email, checking multiple times on Monday. When none came, I read her first email again and thought that maybe she meant that she wanted me to come into the Monday lab session to talk with her and I had misinterpreted her sentence. I emailed her again to ask if this were the case, explaining that if it were, I could not have come in then even had I understood what she was trying to imply, and she emailed me back with this:
"Yes, you certainly did 'misinterpret it.' Don't see how, though, and I''m increasingly unsympathetic with your 'plight.'"
I emailed her again to explain that I hadn't gotten "come into lab" from "we can talk on Monday afternoon," especially since all of our prior conversation has taken place via email. I then told her that I could not possibly come into lab on Monday or Tuesday due to other classes, office hours, work, sports practice, and meetings, and that I had chosen Wednesday for my lab day because it was the only day I had free. I said I could come talk to her during the Wednesday lab session, but if that wasn't going to be a good time, would she please suggest another.
I went to her office multiple times during lab today, but each time I found the door shut with a notice on it that said (and I'm paraphrasing) "I'm interviewing GS students. If the door is shut, don't knock unless it's very important. Important means life or death." So I didn't knock, right? But the entire four hours went by like this and I still couldn't get in to see her. I just got back from lab (see brief rant about lab TA below) and emailed her to tell her this. ARGH. If she's not going to let me make it up, I understand. I did miss an exam, after all. But I do NOT like being jerked around.
So during lab today, we had to dissect larvae and look at two types of chromosomes and prepare a human karyotype. Cool. Then, we were each assigned a human chromosome and told to look up various information about it. I scurried to the library and answers to all of the questions listed, then jogged back to lab to make an overhead sheet and think about what I was going to say during the 3-5 minutes allotted for my presentation.
I did exactly what the assignment sheet said, down to the letter, and got 7/10. I watched the TA give 10/10 to a girl who had copy-pasted and printed out whole paragraphs and data tables from an uncited website to use as her overhead. Another boy left out a quarter of the items requested on the directions, but still got 9/10. What the hell?
A hefty chunk of my formal education from elementary through high school taught me the Law of School: follow the directions, think, and show the grader what you've learned, and you will get a good grade. That's all there is to it. That's how to ace exams, get As on papers, and pull near-perfect scores on standardized tests. But not in bio lab. I have also gotten points taken off reports for NOT using passive voice (the lab manual even specifically mentions that we shouldn't) and for not including information that was not requested in either the lab manual section about the report or on the WebCT report-specific guideline that the professor puts up each week for us to follow. I'm okay with getting a B in bio lab, but I want it to be because I didn't understand all of the material or performed badly on exams or screwed up my lab reports, not because I followed the directions.
Whoo. Okay, I hope that makes me feel better. Sorry, if you just read all that. I'll type in something happier later. Right now, I have to find dinner and do some reading before the liquid latex rehearsal in an hour. I'm stage-managing it.
I missed my bio lab midterm due to sleeping in past the alarm on Friday. I had gotten up at five in the morning on Thursday to spend fourteen hours fighting for same-sex civil marriage at the Boston courthouse. When I emailed my professor to ask if I could make it up, she emailed me back with:
"yes, i know you missed the exam. i'm not sure what to do and am leaving for the day. we can talk on monday afternoon."
I was surprised and pleased to find that she was thinking about letting me take the test late. I eagerly awaited her email, checking multiple times on Monday. When none came, I read her first email again and thought that maybe she meant that she wanted me to come into the Monday lab session to talk with her and I had misinterpreted her sentence. I emailed her again to ask if this were the case, explaining that if it were, I could not have come in then even had I understood what she was trying to imply, and she emailed me back with this:
"Yes, you certainly did 'misinterpret it.' Don't see how, though, and I''m increasingly unsympathetic with your 'plight.'"
I emailed her again to explain that I hadn't gotten "come into lab" from "we can talk on Monday afternoon," especially since all of our prior conversation has taken place via email. I then told her that I could not possibly come into lab on Monday or Tuesday due to other classes, office hours, work, sports practice, and meetings, and that I had chosen Wednesday for my lab day because it was the only day I had free. I said I could come talk to her during the Wednesday lab session, but if that wasn't going to be a good time, would she please suggest another.
I went to her office multiple times during lab today, but each time I found the door shut with a notice on it that said (and I'm paraphrasing) "I'm interviewing GS students. If the door is shut, don't knock unless it's very important. Important means life or death." So I didn't knock, right? But the entire four hours went by like this and I still couldn't get in to see her. I just got back from lab (see brief rant about lab TA below) and emailed her to tell her this. ARGH. If she's not going to let me make it up, I understand. I did miss an exam, after all. But I do NOT like being jerked around.
So during lab today, we had to dissect larvae and look at two types of chromosomes and prepare a human karyotype. Cool. Then, we were each assigned a human chromosome and told to look up various information about it. I scurried to the library and answers to all of the questions listed, then jogged back to lab to make an overhead sheet and think about what I was going to say during the 3-5 minutes allotted for my presentation.
I did exactly what the assignment sheet said, down to the letter, and got 7/10. I watched the TA give 10/10 to a girl who had copy-pasted and printed out whole paragraphs and data tables from an uncited website to use as her overhead. Another boy left out a quarter of the items requested on the directions, but still got 9/10. What the hell?
A hefty chunk of my formal education from elementary through high school taught me the Law of School: follow the directions, think, and show the grader what you've learned, and you will get a good grade. That's all there is to it. That's how to ace exams, get As on papers, and pull near-perfect scores on standardized tests. But not in bio lab. I have also gotten points taken off reports for NOT using passive voice (the lab manual even specifically mentions that we shouldn't) and for not including information that was not requested in either the lab manual section about the report or on the WebCT report-specific guideline that the professor puts up each week for us to follow. I'm okay with getting a B in bio lab, but I want it to be because I didn't understand all of the material or performed badly on exams or screwed up my lab reports, not because I followed the directions.
Whoo. Okay, I hope that makes me feel better. Sorry, if you just read all that. I'll type in something happier later. Right now, I have to find dinner and do some reading before the liquid latex rehearsal in an hour. I'm stage-managing it.