<p>I've come to realize that the professor you get influences your GPA, and so if you get nicer, less rigid professors your GPA will be higher, but if you get overly rigid professors than there's a bigger chance that you will score lower.</p>
<p>In my first semester I had an English professor who did not believe in giving As. She believed As were homeruns, so I never got an A on anything she assigned. the highest I got was B+, but I ended up with a B-. After that the next two courses in English I got more understanding professors and scored As.</p>
<p>Right now I have a very unorganized French professor who is also very rigid. She can lose student's assignments and give them no credit and take no blame. She gives homework assignments but does not collect them all or count them towards your grades. It's random what homework assignments she chooses to collect. The more important assignments she collects she does not give credit until fully corrected. Meaning, you can turn in corrections 3 times and still not get credit for it. I found out that she only counted about only 3 assignments I did when I KNOW I did much more. This is by far the worst professor I ever had, and because of HER I will be getting a low grade. I think College should be more uniform in their grading policies and from now on i'm gonna use ratemyprofessor before taking any classes.</p>
<p>I use ratemyprofessor before I sign up for any classes to avoid overly rigid professors, and I usually go for professors that have a lot of good reviews. If all the good professors are taken, or if the only professor teaching a certain course has mediocre/average ratings, I just go ahead and take that professor anyway so I can fulfil my transfer requirements.</p>
<p>Pay raises depend on the boss you have, speedy service at the DMV depends on the person you have, how much your future ex-wife gets depends on the judge you get, etc…</p>
<p>It sucks, I know, all you can really do is just work as hard as you can.</p>
<p>Well there are professors who do hand them out so why should I work harder when other people get As easily? </p>
<p>Another thing this professor is just unforgiving, a classmate told me she did not give him credit for a worksheet assignment because the wording, and the font style of the numbers on the page were slightly different. He was using a different edition of the workbook but it still had the same items our version had. She is just a *****.</p>
<p>So…what are you in college for? To get As? Or to learn something? </p>
<p>I have found with my English professors that the harder the grader, the better the class, the more I learn. I could care less if I get a C if my professor is helping me to become a better writer and thinker.</p>
<p>And as for your experience in English classes…have you considered the possibility that you might just be improving, and that why you have begun to receive As on assignments? Just, you know, something to think about.</p>
<p>Well… if he’s just there to get his degree… I guess he can learn a few things on the way. For PreMedical, Law students, and other PreGraduates screw learning stuff. It’s a jungle out there. You can’t go to college to learn. You go for the A.</p>
<p>@wigginn – Have to say it…true though your statement may be, the sentiment makes me a little queasy. What a shame, to waste all that time and opportunity and money for a good report card that’ll get you further down the path to “success”.</p>
<p>That’s easy to say if you have a professor that gives a lot of A’s or a reasonable professor. Consistency between professors is definitely a problem.</p>
<p>Watch out for ratemyprofessor. Sometimes the reviews don’t tell the whole story. I learned that the hard way. </p>
<p>(By the way: BEWARE subjective graders.) </p>
<p>Anyway, sometimes there’s nothing you can do about it. Professors cover a vast range of personalities, grading styles, etc. Sometimes you get one that is–truly–not very good. Whether they’re disorganized, don’t give out A’s, or whatever.</p>
<p>-shrug- You have to deal with it. Just do the best you can.</p>
<p>I mean, you can be upset about it, but don’t let it drag you down. It’s a bummer, sure, but you need to focus on doing your best and learning all you can.</p>
<p>Ratemyprofessors is useless if your “professor” is new or a grad student.
and AUGH. Writing classes are the worst. The grading of my communications teacher is RIDICULOUS. My teacher simply won’t give out an A and finds the worst excuses and makes up problems with my papers to squeeze in B+'s. Ridiculous. I can’t believe I have to pass/fail this class because I’m premed</p>
<p>In a way I agree and in another way I don’t. </p>
<p>Some professors are harder than others, and they all definitely have their own methods. For example, one professor this year just ripped apart my paper with opinions on how I should have reworded things. He was very angry with the way all of our papers were written and was never, ever satisfied with anything.</p>
<p>I wrote in the same writing style with another professor, received an A, and he also suggested I do undergraduate research with him.</p>
<p>So people have different expectations. </p>
<p>I’ve also have had extremely opinionated professors, like my really conservative speech professor who looked like I just threw fire to his beliefs when I did a presentation on a subject he clearly didn’t agree with. When he ‘corrected’ my information he simply stated the opposite views and said those were the correct ones. </p>
<p>Then others simply grade based on completion, which in a way sort of makes me mad sometimes because it’s like I spend all these hours doing this work, at least take more than one glance at it. But oh well, I’ll take the A too.</p>
<p>Sometimes you just can’t win, but like said before you’re in college to learn, not necessarily get an A.</p>
<p>I agree completely. I’ve had this exact same experience. I have two incredibly hard grading teachers. One of them likes my writing style and only gives me advice on strengthening my arguments; the other hates it and instead of critiquing my argument, critiques only my word choice and phrasing. </p>
<p>It is frustrating when they require you to do something incredibly difficult/nearly impossible (that is, change your entire writing style, word choice and all) in order for you to get that coveted A, but sometimes you just come across professors like that.</p>
<p>I’m not naive enough to believe that I can get through college–especially my college–without taking a few blows from professors like that. You just need to accept that sometimes you’ll get a professor that’s like this. Learning and getting the degree. Those are the important things.</p>
<p>Though this is completely theoretical and, I’m sure, would manifest into nothing, it’s still something to consider: Wouldn’t it be cool if students had the option of taking either an “evaluation” or “learning” track in college, one emphasizing results–grades–and the other more forgiving of lower GPA’s because, essentially, the student “sought” out tough professors and wanted to learn and didn’t really give a damn about their GPA, as long as they were passing. I’m kind of in a dilemma like the latter scenario.</p>
<p>I’m currently taking a class with a kick-ass professor, but I don’t expect to earn anything beyond a C+/B-; however, I’ve never learned so much from one course. If I could have it my way, I’d take classes with more professors like him and graduate with a mediocre GPA but will have evolved into the individual I want to be. But, then again, there’s this little thing called Grad-school…</p>