<p>Maybe it's just the high school I go to; even though courses can be challenging, a decent amount of my classes have teachers who make up grades for assignments. In AP language for example, w never get any of our tests back and we know the teacher makes up grades because there have been times where we know we got everything on a simple assignment right and we get a 95 or we know we answer a test question wrong and she puts in a 100. The same thing happened in AP stat, AP Lit, and AP Span...one of my teachers even got students to enter grades into the computer for them.</p>
<p>I think if anything kindof hindered my learning experience it was also that many teachers will spend entire class periods just talking about their personal lives or random political views they have instead of teaching the actual material or anything related to it.</p>
<p>@FullOutPanic congratulations on taking a rigorous course load in high school, it sounds to me like you are a bright and caring student.The bad news is that high school teachers, college professors, eventually coworkers, and bosses may all at times have what we see as “arbitrary” standards and expectations.
Perhaps learning to adapt to the specific demands of each class is one of the most important skills a student can learn. With that in mind consider these suggestions:</p>
<p>1.Life is not fair, neither are all teachers or profs. </p>
<ol>
<li>It is YOUR job to adapt to THEM. It is much more effective to meet with a teacher and clarify what YOU need to do to improve your grade than it is to complain about the outcome. Be accountable.</li>
</ol>
<p>3.If you want to do well in college I hope you will take this advice to heart. Learning at the postsecondary level is YOUR responsibility. Not your professors, the T/A, or your mommy’s. The university, faculty, and hopefully your family and friends are RESOURCES. Tools to help you learn and succeed. Don’t be afraid to reach out, go to office hours, study with other successful students.</p>
<p>Last quarter for one of my classes the professor said he was going to give us a test that was easier than the one he gave out last year. He gave us a harder one. He told us the exam was going to be one way and it was completely different than the way he told us it would be. First day he said he was going to curve the class because the average wasn’t any higher than 50 last year. He didn’t. He made the final terrible. </p>
<p>I think a majority of us still passed without the curve and he is a very good teacher, but you need to shift gears sometimes for professors that will want you to absolutely know everything to do problems you’ve never seen before. </p>
<p>I think my freshman physics class was failing so badly that he didn’t even give us a final in community college. Yeah, community college. Admittedly, they were pushing everyone to get into UCLA since almost every single one of them was from there. A lot of us did succeed in passing with decent grades, but I don’t think a freshman physics class should be 80% failing.</p>
<p>I took U.S. History winter quarter and the professor’s grading seemed arbitrary and he never gave an explanation. I didn’t really care though since I had more to worry about that quarter than getting an A in history. I wrote the worst two essays I’ve ever written in my life for the final and he gave me an A on the final, yet for our weekly prompts he didn’t give me any higher than an 80 something. I literally winged the final and got an A on it…how did that happen?</p>
<p>The year I took an Art Appreciation class the grading seemed arbitrary too. I think the professor might have had a crush on me, though? No one else got an A but me on the midterm. I completely guessed all of her daily quizzes without previous reading and got 7 or higher most of the time. I skipped most of her class, BS’d her essays and did very well on them. She told me that my writing was “beautiful”. Then I ended up with a C in the class. </p>
<p>Other than him/her, I haven’t had any problems like this. Just self-esteem crunching classes where they expect the student to know so much and fail the majority of students. Thankfully, I’m not in that majority at my school. </p>
I had this happen in a college class once. I didn’t really mind it because I still learned stuff in the class and I thought I knew enough of the material to get a good grade anyway. </p>
<p>Honestly, I think it can be even more arbitrary in college, because professors can set literally whatever standards they want. Most professors will have clearly outlined standards for each tier of grades, but others (particularly for more subjective classes), you won’t know anything until after the semester is already finished</p>
<p>If you think your high school classes are unfair, you will be deeply disappointed in college. I’m in my third year and I can attest that there are many professors out there with questionable grading methods. </p>
<p>A lot of my exams have never been passed back. For some of my classes, we take them online and the last screen just shows us a percentage and not what we got wrong. </p>
<p>Some professors I’ve had will change the syllabus without providing you with a new copy. Assignments will change weight and they won’t give you a clear explanation of how they calculate your final grade. And yes, you will hear about their personal lives to. </p>
<p>Professors with tenure can do whatever they want. Most are rational people but some seem like they’re trying to ruin you! For me it’s been the exception though. It’s probably worse for big colleges. Mine is small. </p>