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*U-Wire member papers have full permission to reprint all or part of this column. Go nuts! This Week: • If
my parents pay the bills, can they choose my major? (questions may have been edited for length, grammar and/or to maintain the privacy of the sender.) Dear Professor K: College is a time to find yourself and try to narrow down what you want to do with the rest of your life. But how do I manage when my ideas are not what my parents had in mind for me? Technically they have a say because they help pay the bills, but how much should that really be a factor? This is definitely not an easy question, and the answer will differ from family to family. In the best-case scenario, you sit down with your folks and explain your ideas and interests. They listen to you, and then - this is crucial - you genuinely listen to them. It has to work both ways. Once you've heard each other, you may be able to manage a compromise, like a double major. Many parents are concerned about ensuring that you can earn a living, and a double major - your true love and, say, business or engineering - will at least defer a real showdown until after you graduate. But this doesn't always work. Some parents come from families or cultures in which older members make decisions for younger ones. In these cases, experience is held to be the prime basis of wisdom and compromise may not be a workable solution. If you can't reach an understanding, you have to decide what your priorities are. If you're determined to follow your own ideas, you have to make yourself very clear and be willing to take the consequences. I said in an earlier column that I changed majors four times. What I didn't say was that I worked full-time to put myself through school. When I lost my full scholarship by changing majors, my parents couldn't afford to pay my tuition, room and board, so I had to earn that money. They helped as much as they could, but I had to be responsible for the fallout from my decision. If it's genuinely important to you to be a sculptor or a classicist, you'll figure out a way to put yourself through school. It's not ideal, and it's not fun, but there are many worse options. And you'll certainly learn good organizational skills and work habits in the process. I consider myself a pretty good note-taker, but this lecture class is killing me. It's a large class, and the professor spends the entire lecture talking so quickly and spouting out so much information that I can't keep up. I desperately try to scribble down all the details he gives, but it's so hard to really understand the material when I'm spending so much time just trying to write it down. There are several possible solutions to this problem. First, you can form a note-taking collective. Four or five of you agree to share your notes from each class; that way, you'll feel solidly covered. The only drawback is that some members may lean too heavily on others. Before you get involved in such an arrangement with your best pal, be sure her handwriting is legible and she stays awake in class. Another option is to tape the class. Many students do this, and I think it works really well. It's very important, though, to get permission from your instructor first. Many professors are squeamish about students recording what they feel is their intellectual property - especially with so many note-taking services selling their work on the open market. But it should be easy enough to get a green light once you've explained your reasons for taping the class. Once that's out of the way, you have to decide what to do with the tapes. You can transcribe them or listen to them. You can use them as a backup to your in-class notes, filling in the gaps by reviewing them while listening to the tape. You can also ask around. Find other students who have had this class with this professor before. Find out what kind of exam questions he or she asks. You can definitely gear your note-taking to the style of evaluation if you know what it is. You can also talk to the professor. Ask her or him what you should be focusing on. Ask if she or he would consider a Web site with class notes posted on it - this is becoming increasingly common as faculty get more Web-literate. Since everyone's learning and studying styles are different, these may not all work for you. But somewhere in the mix, I hope you find a useful approach. What's the best way to go about appealing a grade you got on a paper that you think deserves a considerably higher mark? Is it even worth the trouble? This is a terribly touchy matter. Think about what you're suggesting: that you're more equipped to do your professor's job than she is. Appealing a grade is always a difficult matter, so I'd think hard before doing it. Remember, those few points you could get out of it may come with a price: an uncomfortable relationship with your professor. A grade change rarely makes a difference in your GPA; most students get pretty consistent grades over the course of their careers. If, after taking all this into consideration, you still want to appeal your grade, then do so. On rare occasions, I've changed a grade and felt good about it afterward. Approach your professor without anger and ask for an explanation. You may decide after hearing her logic that your own evaluation was wrong. If not, gently explain your point and ask if she will reconsider the grade. If the grade was given by a TA and, after taking these steps, you're still convinced you've been graded unfairly, you can try the professor. You may get a grade change or you may not, but whatever your professor says you should probably accept the answer. Many students have come to think of themselves as consumers and us faculty as service providers. While to some extent this is true - your tuition pays some of our salary, for example - believing it goes against your own best interests. We're better dealt with as though we're your employers. We review your performance and determine how far and how fast you'll climb. You need our good will to gain access to advanced coursework, research experience and job/grad-school recommendations. We've graded a lot of papers and exams in our time; most often when students don't like grades, it's simply a case of thinking (or hoping) the work was better than it actually was. But rarely, a grade may actually be unfair. It's almost impossible to know what to do in that case. In grad school once, I was given a very unfair grade. I took it without complaining and advised my friends to stay away from that professor. If you want, you can complain to your professor, the department chair and, ultimately, the dean. My feeling is that this is almost never worthwhile. Unless you think it's a case of blatant discrimination - and you have real evidence to back up your claim - it's unlikely to do you or anyone else any good. In fact, it's quite likely to do a fair bit of harm. Dr. Anahid Kassabian is a professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University in New York.
© 2001 Virtually Advising |
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