<p>This is my freshmen year at a community college and I'm quite a bit stumped. My english professore basically told me that she will not take my essay on the deadline date because i was three minutes late for class and she collected the essays 20 seconds after the begining of class. I mean I feel kind of bad for being late for class but I was only three minutes late should I be punished so hardly for that? Now that she won't take my paper which is 15% of my grade chances are I will get a bad a grade in that class.I don't know if there is anything I can do to change this. If I talk to the deparment chair will that change anything? or will she just wind up being even worse? I don't know what to do and I feel compleletly hopless please help me!</p>
<p>This is extreme, but the teacher’s prerogative. Should have been on time.</p>
<p>No, talking to the head of the dept will most likely NOT do anything. The paper was due at the start of class. Not 3 minutes in.</p>
<p>The rules are up to the professor. When I taught journalism, I didn’t accept any papers that were attempted to be handed in even seconds after I had collected papers. As I told students, when you watch the evening news, you never see it starting with the camera focused on an empty chair. No matter how bad the weather is, the anchor is expected to be present when the newscast starts.</p>
<p>I’ve even heard of professors standing outside of classes with a stop watch and locking students out and refusing papers if the students were seconds late. </p>
<p>Talking to the department chair probably won’t help you. More than likely, the prof announced the rules about papers either on the syllabus or in class. </p>
<p>What you can do is to make sure that problem never happens again. Computer jams, bad traffic, difficulty finding parking spaces can cause you to be late so if you have a paper due, plan your schedule so you can arrive at class early.</p>
<p>If the professor accepted papers only at that time, then that’s unreasonable, and talking to the department head would probably fix it. But I suspect that she was willing to take it before, and set the beginning of that class as an absolute latest deadline. In which case, although that is obviously mean of her, there’s not much anyone can do.</p>
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<p>Why is it unreasonable? A deadline is a deadline.
Why would the department head fix it? The teacher did nothing wrong and the department head has much bigger issues, I’m sure.</p>
<p>If you sleep with your professors wife/husband they’ll probably turn you away.</p>
<p>There’s most likely nothing you can do as due dates in college are VERY STRICT. However, I must ask why you were late before I can give you more advice as having a serious excuse may help your cause and by serious I mean like mother dying, getting mugged, 3 car pile up serious (not alarm clock broke serious LOL).</p>
<p>You’re kind of in ProfessorLand, provided they aren’t violating the college’s policies, they can pretty much do whatever they want. </p>
<p>All you can do is take heed and take it as a learning experience for next time.</p>
<p>It’s normal for professors to refuse to accept papers when the students violate the rules for turning in papers. That can mean showing up with loose pages if the rules say you need a paper clip. It can mean showing up after the start of class if the paper is due at the very beginning of the period. It can mean 2" margins instead of 1".</p>
<p>Other professors are a lot more willing to bend. How flexible deadlines are depends on a lot of factors, most of which are invisible to undergraduates.</p>
<p>You may think 3 minutes late is not a big deal, but apparently in this class it is. Be grateful the paper is only worth 15% of your grade and not 40% or 100%.</p>
<p>It’s not pleasant, but it is reasonable. If the professor says that papers are due at the beginning of class on X day, then that is when they are due. From where you sit, it isn’t very nice, but from the prof’s point of view, you have to draw the line somewhere or else the deadline has no meaning.</p>
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<p>I agree. I think it sucks, but that’s the truth. You have to draw the line. Why can you get arrested for underaged drinking two hours before midnight on your 21st birthday? It’s easier if there are lines instead of spectrum. What if a kid came in half an hour after you? Then would the teacher have to refuse the paper? It’s always frustrating, but sometimes we all have to suck up the suck and just deal with it.</p>
<p>Do you have a history of being late, or talking back, or anything? Teachers will often be extreme sticklers with students who have bad habits, in my experience.</p>
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<p>I disagree with this statement. To say the professor has to draw the line somewhere is fine, but the OP was only three minutes late. To refuse the OP’s paper was not only unfair, but completely cruel. And it’s not like the OP was finishing the paper in class or something; he or she just walked into class late. IMHO, 11:59 PM is a fair deadline.</p>
<p>And I’m pretty sure that professor will have to deal with karma if she refuses to accept that paper.</p>
<p>itz kind of a given u dont come to class late on days something is due/when there’s an exam bc teachers are liable to do stuff like this since it’s not “just another day”. they usually reiterate before it’s due that they will not accept it if you come to class late as well.</p>
<p>it sucks but you should have shown up on time, or handed it in earlier</p>
<p>bigwill, So, by your logic then, turning in the paper by 12:02am would be fine, because it’s only three minutes late? All you’re doing is changing the time at which it’s due. </p>
<p>If the class starts at 1:20pm, and the deadline is the start of class, and you get there at 1:23pm to turn in your paper, you’re late. The deadline has passed. Unless you were in a major car accident or something severe happened, the lateness probably could have been prevented, so it’s totally the student’s fault, and I see no reason for the professor to have to have pity.</p>
<p>But it’s up to the professor whether or not they want to strictly enforce this. I’ve had professors collect things up until the end of class, so if you wanted to walk in five minutes before class ended and turn in the paper, you could have. I’ve had the opposite too, where papers are collected at the start of class and if you walk in 5 minutes late, you’re going to get marked down.</p>
<p>OP Unless you talked to the professor right after class, anything you do now probably won’t help. It would be nice if she would at least give you partial credit. She’s being pretty harsh, but it’s totally within her realm to do so. Sucks, but learn from it.</p>
<p>Pinkchance, you can’t do anything about the deadline. It was set and you unfortunately missed it. Is it cruel? Yes. Can you talk to anyone about it? Not really. The college is going to stand by the professors that have more authority than you do. Some of my teachers were like that in HIGH SCHOOL. That’s just how they teach. Either that or they want you to realize how much the real world sucks, because frankly it does, and that almost doesn’t count when it comes to deadlines or else everyone would procrastinate :(</p>
<p>Sorry about your paper. But don’t worry. In the scheme of things it is just one paper. And I can guarantee by the time you graduate, it won’t matter anymore.</p>
<p>I believe that the GPA is correlated with success in life as getting a high GPA means that you have to do all of the little things well along with the big things. That means getting your stuff done on time or ahead of time and making allowances for the unforeseen.</p>
<p>You might ask your professor to see if there are any extra credit opportunities for the class.</p>
<p>The Professor is just on an ego trip. You can still try talking to the professor, but if the person doesn’t accept your reasoning I don’t believe any case made to the department chair will help, as by technical standards she is allowed to do this. You’ll meet your fair share of egotists like your Professor in life, which is a sad thing, but the best in this situation is to learn how to deal with such personalities and use them to your advantage.</p>