My Class is a Hot Mess

Student Lounge College Life
1

Just feel like sharing what a crazy class I am in right now.

The class started out being listed as one name, a special topic in biology for college seniors and graduate students. There should have been two portions, a lecture and a computer portion with bioinformatics. Then one professor was not able to teach the course and dropped out after all the students already registered, and the class went from being a biology and genetics lecture class with bioinformatics to just bioinformatics.

So now the class is registered in a course with a different name and instructor than we signed up for.

And I don’t dislike the current professor, but he is doing an awfully poor job running the class. He is 7 lectures behind on posting the answer key we need to do peer assessment for the class. Cancelled class once 20 minutes before via email. Another time just did not come to class. And to top it all off? The computer lab where the class was held was reserved by another class for the second half of the semester and we were abruptly kicked out of the room we were in because the professor was unaware.

So after we already registered for the class, the professor changed, the course name changed, the room changed, and the subject changed.

I have never experienced a class this nuts in my life! Fortunately the grading is lenient, but it’s incredibly frustrating to believe you are going to be learning one thing, and get something else completely. Especially for me, since I am not interested in bioinformatics portion, but wanted to study the original topic on genetics!

Have you ever been in class that was really disorganized like this?

2

What very likely happened was that this class was given to this instructor at the last minute, after someone else dropped out from teaching it. He is following some of the things already set up for him, like the room, and would not know and would never think to ask if that room, which he had been told was his, was somehow also being used by some other class. None of that is his fault, it’s the department.

If he was given the class late, he may be scrambling behind the scenes, which it does sound like. He may also not be the perfect person for the job, because he really can’t just not show up. Obviously, something is going on here. You can talk to the Dean of the department offering the class to see if she can help this teacher out, get things back on track for you guys.