<p>So I got landed with an absolutely insane professor. He doesn't keep to his syllabus, which by the way, has basic math errors in its grading system, he is inconsistent with deadlines, often shifting them around on a bit of a whim, extended the deadline of an assignment worth 20% of our grade(good) didn't tell portions of the class until after they submitted it with the wrong deadline, let them resubmit it, graded them on the wrong submission, changed his grading rubric 3 times, once during assignment, twice after it was all submitted, only once telling the students. It was a core class that I wasn't permitted to skip or transfer prof (special program). Does anybody have survival tips?</p>
<p>I’m a graduate student that has been a teaching assistant. I think having a scatterbrained prof like this gives you license to be That Student.</p>
<p>-Ask lots of questions about assignments several weeks in advance. Don’t be afraid to raise your hand at the end of the class and ask for clarification on the assignment, even if you just want to confirm the actual written guidelines and deadline that are given. If you don’t feel comfortable in class, talk to him briefly after or visit him during his office hours to get it down.</p>
<p>-Begin working on things early so that if he shifts deadlines around you don’t have to scramble. It’s always better to have more time than less.</p>
<p>-Given that there’s an element of unpredictability with his assignments, you may want to put your other classes on a regular schedule and kind of work around this one. Allow yourself time in the schedule to study for an extra element that he’s introduced to the syllabus, or allow yourself time to switch subjects around if there’s a lull period in his class.</p>
<p>-Don’t worry about the changed grading rubric so much. I have given sample rubrics to students that were similar but not exactly the same as the rubric I ended up using; whenever I have changed the rubrics after a submission, they are <em>always</em> in the students’ favor. In fact, the few times that I HAVE changed them after submission, it’s been in reaction to the papers that I’ve gotten. But then again, the changes in my case have never been drastically different (more combining two categories into one or clarifying for myself what the difference between two levels within a category are). Are these drastically different changes?</p>
<p>-I would periodically ask him if there are any changes to the syllabus that you should be aware of. Just be polite when you ask, but he did kind of set himself up for this.</p>