Professor not understanding at all

Student Lounge College Life
1

I am taking summer classes and working at the same time.

I have a lab at the end of the day, where the professor opens up our online homework assignment at 2:30 pm, when class ends, to be turned in at 11:59pm that same day.

However, I work retail and sometimes get schedule 4-12 am; work is about 20 minutes from school, without counting my lunch (because I have no breaks earlier). That means I have about 30 minutes before work to start on homework, and then a combined 1 hour in breaks during work time.

The homework can be pretty tough, so I tried talking to the professor, who only responded with “do what you can.” But these are worth 15-20% of my final grade, so I do not know what to do. To me, it seems completely irrational for a professor to assign homework due the same day, but at the same time I don’t want to seem like I’m making excuses to get an extension. What should I do?

2

There are two sides to this. First, an instructor should always allow at least 24 hours for homework assignments. On the other hand, was this homework policy on the syllabus before you registered? If not, then you may be able to make an appeal to the department to receive enough time to accommodate your work schedule.

3

Can you ask your job to not schedule you on the day of class?

4

I’d tell the job that you have class until 4 and can’t work until 5, and then spend that 2 hours on the homework

5

Can you talk to your workplace about not being scheduled to work that day each week?

6

If you are taking two summer classes, realize that you are trying to squish a 15 week course into 6 or 8 weeks.

Keep in mind that the government/accreditation assumes that for every academic hour in class, you need to do 2-3 hours of studying/reading/homework.
15 weeks/course x 3 class/week (1 hours/class + 2-3 study/homework hours/class) = 135-180 hours needed for a course
If you had 2 classes in 8 weeks, that would be around 20 hours/ class/week.x 2 classes =40 hours/week

So 2 classes is a full time job…plus you are working another 8 hours on top of that?

You have to put your school work as your first priority…remember that HW includes reading/studying/doing homework which is a way to practice your skills that you are learning. You are going to have to drop the amount of work hours you are doing so you can succeed in your classes.

What your professor is saying is that you have to make the choices…you can choose to not get 15-20% of your grade and probably not get a good grade in your class. or you can choose to work less.