<p>
I find that a disturbing number of students come to college never having seen a real syllabus. They’ve received lots of documents in the opening days of a high school year, but a lot of this amounts to disclaimers that students feel they can live without understanding. But they do not always get a SCHEDULE that the instructor feels bound by. So freshman year, when they get a schedule from a professor, more often than not it disappears into the backpack because they assume it’s meaningless paperwork. It’s not!</p>
<p>As a consequence, I have a lot of students who show up on a Monday not realizing that an assignment is due. Or for a long assignment, they don’t block out time in the weeks leading up to the due date, and then find themselves overwhelmed the night before. Some of that would probably happen anyway (jobs, Xbox, weed, whatever) but surely some of it would be avoided if they just looked at the darned syllabus from time to time.</p>
<p>And yes, some professors are not as good about verbal reminders in class as they might be, but those only go so far even when a professor issues frequent reminders. Nothing beats the ability to look at a schedule that’s always available.</p>