I’m a first year college student so I’m still learning the ropes on how things work but like the title says is this normal? I have a class that has mentors help out 2 days a week outside of class that we get bonus points for if we visit with them for help. The beginning of the semester the professor never mentioned that it was mandatory but he stressed that he really wanted us to use the mentors. Just this last week he docked everyone in the class the amount of bonus points we would have earned saying we should have been utilizing the mentors. He told us that it was mandatory when he never said such a thing. I’ve never had a reason to use the mentors for the fact that I was at 98% for grade but after this last week I went from an A+ to literally a 62% in the blink of an eye.
This is all so crazy to me, I figured that he did this as a wake up call for some of the struggling students to start using the mentors and that he would switch the grades back this week but after class today he said he is keeping the grades as they are. The other kicker is that this wasn’t mandatory for the online students so just the campus students are affected by this, and also there is nothing in the syllabus about the mentors. This is so confusing to me and it’s almost as if I can’t wake up from some bad dream…is this something that happens regularly in college?
I Agree OP - if not told it was mandatory until after a grade being lowered, I’d be angry also. And why would a student excelling in this class go to a mentor? This seems very HS like to me.
At my S college the professors do encourage students to meet with mentors, go to the writing center etc but it is not mandatory. In one class, students were offered a few bonus points if they rewrote a paper with the help of the writing center, but definitely not mandatory and no grade lowering.
Obviously, from this point onward I’d use the mentors, but I’d also discuss your confusion with the professor.
Makes no sense to me, for a high-A student to drop to a 62 over something like this. I might overlook a couple of points, but 36 percentage points? Raises a huge red flag. I would go to the professor first, and if you can’t resolve this successfully, or learn of some legitimate reason he did this, (though I can’t imagine) take it to a higher level.
I agree with the others. Start with office hours and talk to the professor. I would think it’s worth going above him if he’s not willing to discuss it though. My daughter’s language class has weekly practice/help sessions that are worth extra credit. She has close to a 100 in the class and the sessions aren’t convenient for her, so she hasn’t gone to any. She would be rightfully upset to be penalized for not doing something optional. She also has a writing seminar that requires mentoring at periodic intervals- that was clearly spelled out and she makes it happen. Something isn’t really a bonus if there is a penalty for not doing it imo.