Frequent Student Questions / Comments

The following are students questions, comments, and emails that I have received in the decade I’ve been teaching higher education. I recommend reading through these before sending along messages, complaints, and common questions to your college instructors, as this list was compiled and reviewed by other instructors as well.

I believe in transparency and honesty between students and professors. This list is not meant to offend or harm any student, past or present, but to show and teach students about their relationships with college instructors.

1. Did I miss anything important? Can you let me know what we went over in class?
   • Meaning: I missed your class and don’t think I missed anything important and I expect you to do extra work to inform me of what I missed. You would do that for 10, 25, 50 individual students every class, right?
   • Professors spend 4-10 hours on each lecture and update them regularly, so you are essentially asking if you missed “anything” as if their work and preparation is not “anything”
   • If you miss class, it is your job to make time to meet and review your notes or get them from another student in the class. Your professor is not responsible for accommodating every single student with notes and instruction that repeats what we did in class. That is what class is for…it’s literally why there is such a thing as class — it makes it so that students can learn collectively and at once from a professor rather than each person individually learning one-on-one from a professor per the Renaissance. 5000 years later, we’ve made education a bit more efficient.
2. I need an extension.
   • Meaning: I am demanding you grant an extension with no late penalty simply because I asked.
   • This is something you should never email your instructor because it is not a request.
   • Extensions are something you must request because they are inconvenient to your professors and their grading, their days/weeks, etc.
     • Why? Imagine 100 students in a course and 20 of them ask for extensions. That’s 20 emails to respond to, 20 decisions to make and evaluate if an extension is warranted, 20 students’ extensions to keep track of, 20 students your professor must grade at a different time than previously allocated during our semester planning, often cutting into our other work and personal lives.
   • Making a demand of your instructor is never a good idea. We are here to educate and help you, we are not customer service representatives and if you want to “talk to our manager” you’ll be meeting with our department chair(s) and/or Deans explaining (1) why you didn’t work it out with your professor in advance, like adults do and (2) why you were rude to an professor of the university you have chosen to attend in order to learn from us.
   • That “Karen” stereotype about someone demanding things rudely and without warrant from those who try to help them? That entitlement? Students are guilty of this behavior more than any women in my life with short blonde haircuts — don’t embody that stereotype.
   • You need to give an adequate reason for why you need an extension. Here are some generally reasonable and unreasonable excuses for extensions:
     • Reasonable: death in the family, death of a pet, health emergency, car accident, previously communicated disability accommodations, previously communicated religious events
     • Unreasonable: I went on a trip, I had to attend a wedding, I’m tired, I haven’t been feeling well all week and just now I’m telling you when something is due, I emailed you 2-3 hours before the deadline and have not heard back, I forgot about the assignment, I attended a sports event, I was drinking and partying/hungover, I had another course to do work for. If it is something you have CHOSEN to do, it is not a good excuse. You chose to do things that interfered with your education and your professor is not responsible for that, nor should we make time to give and grade extensions and track down students who make those choices.
3. I’m disappointed in the grade you gave me.
   • Meaning: I don’t like the grade I see on Canvas because it isn’t what I wanted and that is *your* fault, professor.
   • Grades are earned, not given. If I gave grades, then I would just pull them from a hat and randomly assign them. That would be considerably easier than pouring hours of labor into reading students’ work, making comments, evaluating work based on decade(s) of experience
   • You may think you worked hard on something, but if you started an assignment the same week it was due, you did not give yourself enough time to think about and carefully consider the assignment, how to complete it, and get to office hours to ask questions if you had them. College assignments are hard work, yes. Putting energy and effort into assignments and exams is also hard work, but don’t claim you worked hard on something if you didn’t put in the effort and energy required to be truly thorough
   • Rubrics exist for a reason — they show you and tell you what you should be doing. You need to read the criteria for a rubric and the comments that go with your paper. You must read the assignment, read the feedback, read the rubric, etc. This all takes time and you need to take that time and reflect on your work and work ethic before sending an inflammatory email demanding your grade be higher because you want it to be.
   • I understand grades can come with emotions and anxieties. I know that grades matter. But you do not earn high scores and A’s in college just for showing up. You don’t earn them just because you completed the minimum work either. Hard work =/= the same results for everyone either.
     • Example: I had to take Statistics in college and to earn my doctorate. It was brutal and difficult for me. I worked harder than anyone in my class because it was much harder for me than peers who were already doing statistics in their graduate work. I had a tutor 15-20 hours PER WEEK for a YEAR to earn passing grades (just barely) in both of those classes. It was grueling and emotional, difficult and sometimes felt impossible, but I did it and I am more intelligent for doing so, and it was something I had to complete in order to accomplish my larger goal.
     • I did not go to the professor and the TA and tell them *they* needed to do something different because *I* wasn’t grasping things fast enough. I had to pull my extra weight and get help outside the class because I simply was not as statistics-oriented as my peers. That’s normal human variation!
4. I had an A all semester, I should have one after I finish all the work near finals.
   • Meaning: I didn’t score as high as I wanted on the final projects/exams and feel I should be given a higher score because I had a higher grade prior to those assignments being submitted.
   • A course is made of assignments that are weighted for how much they are worth in a course. If there is a paper due during finals time that is worth 25% of your grade, that is a fourth of the grade and it does not matter how much time and energy you put into the course prior to that assignment — if you earn a C on that paper, it will impact your grade by a weight of 25%
   • I did not invent math…you need to be aware of how much assignments are worth by looking at syllabi and Canvas gradebooks.
   • P.S. In law school, medical school, graduate school — you only have 1-2 exams and assignments and they are the biggest at the end of the term. You either pass or fail some of them too, there aren’t makeups or redos.
5. Will you please give me a higher score?
   • Meaning: you do not care about the rubrics, the assignment instructions, etc. that are used to fairly evaluate you. In essence, you are saying — please grade me differently than everyone else.
   • No.
   • Please see #3. I do not give grades, they are earned.
6. What can I do to make you give me a higher score? How can I make up the points?
   • Meaning: How can you make exceptions and give me extra assignments so that I can get the grade I want, despite the fact that it will add extra work for you?
   • The course has a set of assignments and exams by design. Professors do not have to offer you *anything* more than what is on their syllabus and you are not entitled to “make ups” because you did not earn what you wanted to on an assignment.
   • Please see #3 and #5 above ^
7. Do I need to put in as much effort as the exemplars shown on Canvas?
   • Meaning: I saw the examples on the course page and they look like a lot of work.
   • Professors do not have to give examples, but I have decided to put a few exemplary works on assignment descriptions because it helps students see what level of detail I’m expecting
   • I’m unsure why any instructor would upload an exemplar, a sample, that did not demonstrate the assignment’s expectations.
8. But that would require a lot of work. [assignment, exam, paper, etc.]
   • Meaning: I would prefer you make this easier and allow shortcuts so that I don’t have to put the energy and effort in.
   • Your college instructors have been in school at least 5-10 years longer than you have. They have earned the highest degrees possible in many cases. They have written books, published articles, they have spent their lives committed to this discipline and practice — isn’t that why you are here? To learn and practice what they do? We did the work and we ask for you to do work in order to learn a fraction of our disciplines and educational backgrounds because that’s how learning works.
   • We do not expect you to write dissertations or make your whole career and life about our class — but you chose to enroll in this class, why?
   • If I didn’t create assignments and exams that took work and energy, wouldn’t that mean anyone could walk in and walk out with a degree? That the class doesn’t matter at all, you could just learn it on YouTube in your free time? You are more than welcome to do that version of learning, it’s not college and it isn’t peer reviewed education that is factual and research based, and it does not take hard work.
   • Find things you think are worth hard work and do them. If my class is not something you want to do work to complete, please drop the class.
9. Can you send me the notes/slides for the class?
   • Meaning: I did not read the syllabus about what happens if I miss class and how to get notes from another student. I think the professor should have to email lecture slides to each student who emails to ask, which could be 150+ people and emails.
   • This question suggests that you haven’t taken notes, but you rely on slides to complete assignments when they arise. While that is not universally true, your professors and their courses are much more than their lecture slides.
   • Please see #1
10. Sorry I couldn’t complete the work for your class, my other classes had a lot of assignments.
    • Meaning: I prioritized the work for another professor and course over yours, therefore you should grant me an extension and show forgiveness
    • You might be overloaded with assignments and exams, but the time to ask for extensions because of this was when you first looked at the assignments for all of your courses during the semester, not the week the assignments/exams are due.
    • If you need to ask for an extension, do not use this excuse, as it rudely suggests the class and the instructor is simply not as important to you as another. You have committed to that course and that professor the same as you’ve done for every other class.
11. Thanks in advance — for being accommodating, for your patience, etc.
    • Meaning: I expect you to be accommodating and patient regardless of if I have permission or extension, etc.
    • We are not work colleagues and you need to ask professors for extensions, accommodations, etc. You do not dictate when I make accommodations for you and what they are.
    • I cannot be patient and accommodating when you assume that no matter what you do or how you behave, act, when you turn in assignments, etc., is totally fine without discussing things with me. That’s asking for forgiveness, not accommodation.
    • This is not proper email etiquette to a professor — imagine if I wrote a recommendation letter to Harvard that says “I need you to admit this student — thanks in advance for your accommodation” — absolutely not.

Takeaways:

1) You can ask questions and make requests, but demands are inappropriate to your professors

2) Before you ask or email something to a professor, imagine that all of their students did exactly what you are doing. Would that apply to everyone? If not, why are you different and special comparatively? Have you talked to the instructor about things prior?

3) Professors are people and you need to maintain good relationships with them, which takes time and energy. If you lack the effort and etiquette to build and maintain relationships with professors, you should not expect them to accommodate you, write recommendations for you, etc.

Important Extras:

Your professors who are women, racial minorities, LGBTQIA, fat, disabled (amongst other identities) will receive more criticism and lower student evaluations because of their identities. The number one reason women of color leave legal/criminology academia is students and the way they treat their professors (Deo 2019). You need to ask yourself (and be honest) if you would send that email, ask the same request, to all of your professors, particularly the white cishetero male professors. Minority faculty (particularly teaching faculty) receive many more requests for empathy, disrespectful demands, and complaints to the Dean’s office, despite typically granting more extensions, writing 10-20x the recommendation letters, teaching far more students for less pay, etc. These are facts and you are part of the system of academia that makes them social facts — we can do better.

All of this is not to say that you should not advocate for yourself — when it is warranted. You need to take stock of where you are, who you are, the context, etc. For example, advocating to be “given a higher grade” is not advocacy, it’s manipulation to get what you want. Discussing your work in a mature fashion with an expert who wants you to succeed and learn, grow and expand your talents — that’s self advocacy. Making demands rather than having conversations will get you very little in life and it will also leave you without strong networks.

Remember to ask and request. Plan ahead. Show initiative and planning. Make time and put forth the effort. Be kind and you will usually receive kindness in return.