At the mid-point of every semester there comes a time when students begin to worry whether they should remain enrolled in certain courses. Those courses are usually their most difficult ones, and that time is usually the week of the drop deadline (a.k.a., the last day to withdraw from a class you're failing without actually receiving an F on your transcript).
As the drop deadline looms, students usually approach their professors to see what chance they have of redeeming themselves and somehow salvage their grade. These students are usually willing to do just about anything except the one thing that is sure to help them, put more effort into studying (well, maybe they're not willing to do anything, but I'm sure some would even go there).
I've heard professors talking about this several times. They aren't really allowed to tell a student "yes, you should drop" or "no, you can still get a passing grade so you should remain enrolled." They just have to lay out what the student would have to do to salvage their grade. The student then has to be the one to make the decision.
Perhaps my favorite piece of advice came from one professor who said that sometimes, after laying everything out for them, you just want to look at the student and say, "I can't really tell you what to do, but if I were in your position, I'd probably go kill myself."
2 comments:
Now that is some super sound advice.
It would probably work too.
Someone probably would.
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