Doing badly in a class you're somehow learning a lot in?

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>I'm taking an art class to fulfill my university's core requirements, and my teacher, despite acting kinda like a senile old man, spouts out to our class about the most interesting in our class. He was telling our class about what it means to be an artist, random stories about his life, the value of work, and all these weird things. Sure a lot of his ramblings are non-class related, but it was still interesting to hear. In terms of art, he really helped me see all these different sides to the fine arts world and realize how involved artists can be at times, and I did not think much of art before I came to his class!</p>

<p>However, the bad part is that in terms of assignments, I don't do a stellar job at them. He tells us what to do, and I do it on time, but when it comes to presenting our work, mine always feel like they are lacking something cool that the other works have. I don't rush them or anything, but it's always like this, and I'm not sure why. I can't ask my teacher for improvement helps either because the response I usually get is "I gave you the prompt. Just go and have fun/roam free with it." I'm not failing, but my grade isn't something I may be proud of. </p>

<p>I really do want to keep my GPA as high as possible, and I'm not exactly a big fan of "sit in class, get easy A, do nothing", but is it exactly bad if you don't do good in a class you're learning a lot from?</p>

2

<p>yeah that’s happened to me a lot. soak up the **** in class, bomb the annoying homework and exams</p>

3

<p>this is what auditing classes is for</p>

4

<p>It’s already more than halfway into the semester, and the deadline for auditing a class passed ages ago, so that is not exactly an option for me. Besides, I don’t feel like I am doing THAT badly in the class to need to audit it, and I’m doing good in my other classes that they would help cushion having a not-A grade, but I still wish I could get a higher grade just to maintain my GPA.</p>

5

<p>Have you gone to his office hours? Keep checking in with him, don’t whine about your grade but say something like you did in your post here. Do it several times between now and the end of the term…and maybe if you’re in-between grades, he’ll see that you’re interested (and not a major), and bump up your grade. (And if he doesn’t, at least you’ve had some interesting conversations with a person whose opinion adds something to your life.)</p>

6

<p>

There are more important things in life… such as what you’re learning in this class.</p>