<p>I go to UCONN STAMFORD and being a crappy regional campus, we naturally have some unusual professors here. One of them (a first time teacher), has neglected to give us any tests. Our grade is determined entirely by papers. The final paper, which we turned in on the last day of class this Monday, is worth around 30% of our grade. Up till now I have only received A's on my papers. I was wondering if you think it would help or hurt my grade to ask my professor what I got both on the paper and in the class.</p>
<p>I think it could work both ways. </p>
<p>He could be lazy and not really look at the finals. In this case, emailing him to ask what my grade was could only hurt my grade because he would have just used my previous paper grades and given me an A. </p>
<p>Alternatively he is grading the finals even though he wont be handing them back (classes are over) and by emailing him I show that I am a dedicated student. There is always some discretion in grading, so perhaps my emailing him if I did not earn an A will pressure him into doing so. It is much harder to tell a student directly they didn't get an A then to just plug into a computer.</p>
<p>Asking would also have the advantage of satisfying my gnawing curiosity.</p>
<p>The reason I care so much is because my parents are both Ivy League educated (Columbia) and my sister went to Oxford, so I am quite self-conscious about where I chose to go to school. If I maintain a 4.0 here, then the claim that I am smart enough to have gone to a better University, but chose not to, has some validity. I honestly do not know what I will do if I do not get an A. A non-A would simply confirm all the suspicions my parents have about what a dumb ass their son is. I wish I wasn't so insecure about my intelligence. I scored a 1420 on my SAT's, but went here because I knew it would be a non-threatening environment. Everyone here is so much more stupid than I am and can't challenge my intelligence. I fear, however, that I have deprived myself of an education that was more suited to my abilities. I also think that I am rambling now and should stop whining.</p>
<p>and yes, your prof will more than likely grade your final paper.</p>
<p>i've had several (veteran) professors who don't test, only do papers. it sucks, since it's like entirely objective grading, but that's just some teachers' style. they WILL grade that last paper, and you can always ask them to mail it to you or get it back to you in some way.</p>
<p>it sounds like you're just going to grow more miserable as time progresses in your college environment. i really think you should consider transferring. you don't need to go ivy to be intellectually challenged. there are plenty of colleges that encourage you to compete with yourself and not fellow students, so you have plenty of options that won't bore you but won't threaten you either...
look into it!</p>
<p>Lighten up, if you don't get an A its not the end of the world. Seriously, if you keep up that attitude you are going to jump off a bridge before you graduate college.</p>
<p>If you have gotten all A's why would it be any different on your final?</p>
<p>Kinda sounds like you need to get off the whiny but arrogant bus....
You're not at an ivy. Big deal. If your family is really that strung up on big name institutions and whether you went to one, I'm sorry. I'd say get a new family, but since that's not really an option....</p>
<p>Anyway, if you get the A, congratulations. If not, you should learn that A's aren't everything. It's about what you learned. If all you learn in college is when professors do or don't grade things or just "how to play the game," then you're wasting your time and your parents' (or the gov't's) money.</p>
<p>Yes, professors grade final papers. They also make helpful comments on final papers. Unfortunately, most students care only about their final grades, so don't bother to pick up the papers.</p>
<p>For my school...the professor that teach my class does not grade the final paper. Most of them gather up with other professors in the department and let them give feedback and rate/grade the paper.</p>