You’re union is only strong when it deals with benefits and pay cuts. Other than that… you can imagine that there is a sacred bond that defies morals, values, and fairness in society… Remember, the second a fellow teacher wants to teach your classes… your “union” is obsolete.

Take responsibility for your learning. It is not the professors job to make sure you learned something. If you don’t learn anything and/or flunk it is always the students fault. This happened because you didn’t engage in the class nor did you take it upon yourself to learn the material. This is college, it is not high school. The point of college is to learn how to learn, so you can succeed in anything you choose to do.

Thank you for responding. I read your response and recognize that it is intellectually honest.

I also agree with you regarding admissions. I remember sitting in a psychology class at NMSU, and the girl sitting next to me initiated a conversation with me. We had a nice chat until she asked me where I lived prior to moving to New Mexico. When I answered that I lived in Virginia, she replied, “Oh. Is that, like, in the east?”

I’ll never know whether or not she was flatline…

Dropping classes is sometimes better, but you might not know you are in trouble until it is too late. Some schools put a limit on drops and it can hurt your financial aid eligibility. I have had students around 95% at midterm only to flunk. The last three weeks did them in, and at my school that is past the withdrawal deadline.

In every case, it is a colossal waste of time, and money, period. It is better to not put yourself in that position.

It is not hard to pass my class, but so many flunk.

If I flunked the entire class(which is likely never happen, I will win the lottery before that happens and I never play) I can justify it, if anyone questions it.

I have taught the same class with the same assignments and tests and got radically different results for the class as a whole. Given that admissions allows anyone who has a heartbeat, it is not surprising that students struggle, even in simple classes.

Years ago, when I was a freshman and taking geology, I misread the syllabus and studied the wrong chapters for the midterm. When the grades were posted, I discovered that I had gotten only 56% of the items correct.

When I asked the proff what my options were, he smiled and said, “drop back 10 yards and punt”.

He was right. I dropped the course and picked it up the following year. Result: a final grade of A.

Things happen. Heading towards a failing grade need not invoke drama. It is the rare student who doesn’t drop at least one course during his or her collegiate experience, and dropping a course isn’t a tragedy. It’s an inconvenience. Period.

I worked in the service industry in order to help pay my way through college, btw.

What if you happen to write a bad exam? I mean, even the best of proffs do that sometimes.

Also, if you were to flunk everyone wouldn’t that make you look ineffective as an instructor?

If everyone earns an A(fat chance), I have no problem giving them all A’s and I will easily be able to justify it. If everyone gets an F, I will have a problem with that, but if that is what they earned, then F’s all around!

In fact, I consider it to be a great favor to them. Caving in and giving them a barely passing grades only encourages poor study habits which will curse them for life. It is not like money and happiness come raining from the sky when you get that piece of paper you didn’t earn.

Flunk them and they have two options:

1. Learn from it and do better next time and in all classes making you a much better student who will have the tools to succeed in all their endeavors.

2. Cry a lot, which will not get you your grade change, and then do the same thing next term, get an F again and get thrown out. This will get you tossed out which will save you tuition and get you started in your exciting career in the service industry!

It is a win/win situation.

“Rarely have I ever seen eye-to-eye with my fellow students, so solidarity is hardly something with which I’ll trouble.”

Certainly solidarity is not something you’ll bother with, however your well organized and powerful teachers unions do. And if they don’t they get fined. How naive you are.

“I can guarantee when I grow up and get a job, it will NOT be a job requiring me to join a union. You don’t need a degree for one of those jobs, you can get that right now.”

Teachers unions are extremely powerful. Teachers have degrees. Duh

It looks to me that if a student comes to class on time, pays attention, takes good notes during lectures, participates in discussions, reads the text, and studies for exams (basically, all the things that a student should be doing), then there isn’t any reason why he or she shouldn’t do well in Professor Prusa’s (or anyone else’s) classes.

It also appears that for every student who did poorly in one of Professor Prusa’s classes, several others did well, proving that the latter is possible. Some of the students who failed exams or who found their courses extremely difficult even admitted knowing where they went wrong – and that always had something to do with cutting corners in terms of preparation… (”Attendance is a must”; “I wish I read the book”; “Don’t text or read the paper in class”; “E-mail him asking for help”; “Difficult but definitely, definitely possible to get an A. You just have to be willing to put in a lot of time and work hard.”).

If you believe that you really have been putting forth the effort and doing your best and you’re still struggling, that’s why professors have office hours – stop by and ask for additional help. If you know the course material but keep getting confused by questions of logic on exams (i.e. “There is not enough information given to answer…”), then spend some time brushing up on your logic skills. If you’re having trouble keeping up with your courseload in general, or your professor’s office hours are inconvenient for you, go to your learning center and get yourself a tutor who can help you to improve your overall study skills (effective note-taking, time-management, etc.). You have access to the resources – you just have to be proactive in seeking them out.

If you’ve bitten off more than you can chew; if, at the beginning of the semester, you recognize from reviewing the syllabus of each class you have that there’s no way you’ll be able to handle that much reading or that number of papers or that many exams all at the same time, don’t set yourself up for failure. Swap one of your reading-intensive classes for another, less demanding course that you need, or drop a class entirely. You can take it next semester, and you can meet with your faculty advisor pre-registration to get some help in choosing the rest of your classes such that you’ll be less likely to get in over your head again.

You’re in college now. The standards and expectations are higher, even in 100-level courses, and the workload is heavier and more difficult than what you were accustomed to in high school. You should have expected that, but even if you didn’t, that doesn’t mean that you can’t or shouldn’t be expected to rise to these new challenges.

To all those students everywhere who think that their professors suck and that they were treated unfairly because there was no grading curve, or there was too much reading, or the TA’s graded essays too harshly (What does that even mean? They took off points for poor grammar, spelling, structure, cohesiveness, and clarity? You should lose points for those things!), or writing assignments counted for too high a percentage of the class grade (Again, learn to write better), or the professor didn’t create practice exams for you or otherwise spoon-feed everything to you, or there was a mandatory attendance policy, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam:

Grow up. Stop making excuses. Stop pointing fingers at everyone else for your own mistakes and deficiencies. Grades are earned – the F’s as much as the A’s. Take responsibility. Do the work or don’t; it’s up to you, but if you end up with a poor grade, you have only yourself to blame.

I’m not saying that economics is an easy subject; I don’t think it is. But based upon the student comments that I read, it appears to me – someone who knows none of the parties involved (I don’t attend Rutgers) and is therefore completely objective and without a personal agenda – that if a student comes to class, pays attention, takes good notes during lectures, participates in discussions, reads the text, and studies for exams (basically, all the things that a student should be doing), then there isn’t any reason why he or she shouldn’t do well in Professor Prusa’s (or anyone else’s) classes.

It also looks like for every student who did poorly in one of Professor Prusa’s classes, several others did well, proving that the latter is possible. Some of the students who failed exams or who found their courses extremely difficult even admitted knowing where they went wrong – and that always had something to do with cutting corners in terms of preparation… (”Attendance is a must”; “I wish I read the book”; “Don’t text or read the paper in class”; “E-mail him asking for help”; “Difficult but definitely, definitely possible to get an A. You just have to be willing to put in a lot of time and work hard.”).

If you believe that you really have been putting forth the effort and doing your best and you’re still struggling, that’s why professors have office hours – stop by and ask for additional help. If you know the course material but keep getting confused by questions of logic on exams (i.e. “There is not enough information given to answer…”), then spend some time brushing up on your logic skills. If you’re having trouble keeping up with your courseload in general, go to your learning center and get yourself a tutor who can help you to improve your overall study skills (effective notetaking, time-management, etc.). If you’ve bitten off more than you can chew; if, at the beginning of the semester, you recognize from reviewing the syllabus of each class you have that there’s no way you’ll be able to handle that much reading or that number of papers or that many exams all at the same time, don’t set yourself up for failure. Swap one of your reading-intensive classes for another, less demanding course that you need, or drop a class entirely. You can take it next semester, and you can meet with your faculty advisor pre-registration to get some help in choosing the rest of your classes such that you’ll be less likely to get in over your head again. You have access to the resources – you just have to be proactive in seeking them out.

You’re in college now. The standards and expectations are higher; even in 100-level courses, the workload is heavier and more difficult than what you were accustomed to in high school. That doesn’t mean that you can’t rise to the challenge.

Grades are earned – the F’s as much as the A’s. Take responsibility. Do the work.