OCHEM seating chart by grade?

[djsbaseball2014]

Hey guys,

So my Organic Chemistry professor decided to make our Second Midterm seating chart based off of our Midterm 1 grades. Fortunately, I am in the 17th seat out of 273 seats but i am just curious to hear what everyone thinks about this. Is this cruel for my professor to do? Would love to hear some personal stories about other professors at their schools. Thanks guys!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Lost in Translation]

Sounds dumb and you shouldn't care.

 

[Theafoni]

I feel sorry for 273.

 

[djsbaseball2014]

@Theafoni exactly! haha i feel like the people at the bottom are going to be defeated before we even start the exam, he claims its for cheating purposes. The people at the top won't cheat because they are all A students and don't have to cheat and then everyone else will be cheating off someone who did just as bad as them so there is no point.

 

[Gurby]

I always wonder about those people who finish exams super early - are they geniuses, or are they idiots? I feel like it must be one or the other. A seating chart like this might answer those questions!

 

[Theafoni]

@Theafoni exactly! haha i feel like the people at the bottom are going to be defeated before we even start the exam, he claims its for cheating purposes. The people at the top won't cheat because they are all A students and don't have to cheat and then everyone else will be cheating off someone who did just as bad as them so there is no point.

I would think the cheaters would be around 15th to 90th. Seems pretty stupid by the professor at the end of they day.

UC - riverside, they don't call it UC reject for no reason

 

[djsbaseball2014]

Hey man, UCR was probably one of the best decisions I've made. Allowed me to establish myself academically as well as develop myself as a person. I have everything i need to be a successful applicant here and i wouldn't change it one bit. @Theafoni

 

[Lost in Translation]

Except that you'll be a California applicant.

 

[djsbaseball2014]

@Lost in Translation Fortunately UCR accepts 24/50 students that are UCR alumni into their med school, however, I've pretty much accepted the fact I'm applying to OOS schools primarily and probably only UCR for Cali schools unless i get my GPA up higher which is possible. Ill probably apply to the DO schools out here as well but lots of OOS

 

[Satire5Texul]

Hey guys,

So my Organic Chemistry professor decided to make our Second Midterm seating chart based off of our Midterm 1 grades. Fortunately, I am in the 17th seat out of 273 seats but i am just curious to hear what everyone thinks about this. Is this cruel for my professor to do? Would love to hear some personal stories about other professors at their schools. Thanks guys!

Might as well just make rankings from the start. Update them online. Maybe even let students use pseudonyms if they want. Thats gonna play psychological warfare from both sides: overconfidence at the top, and defeat at the bottom. The middle class lost in translation. Mehhh.

 

[futuremdforme]

I can't believe he is getting away with that. It's a total violation of privacy IMO.

 

[YoungProdigy]

love this idea, ONLY if he would reorganize seating charts as tests and grades are given out. started from the bottom, but we here nowww

seriosuly though, people always talkin about revolutionizing the education system. start with this simple tactic and light fire under peoples' asses.

yes, i will now accept your request to preach on TED.

 

[Doug Underhill]

That seems like a borderline FERPA violation.

 

[Glazedonutlove]

would encourage people to try harder

 

[jl lin]

Weird and just weird.

Too bad you don't have enough time to get those less than A students to get together, all studying the crap out of the stuff, and kick butt on the exam in order to mess up his thinking. Everyone at the "back of the bus" would be like this to those in ahead of them: "Ah too bad you weren't sitting by me." LOL
Probably some social/psych-like experiment.

 

[BphysDoc]

I would think the cheaters would be around 15th to 90th. Seems pretty stupid by the professor at the end of they day.

UC - riverside, they don't call it UC reject for no reason

My brother went there, and he loved the campus, as well as the quality of his education. UCR is definitely a good school.

 

[djsbaseball2014]

@BphysDoc Thank you! Everyone gives UCR a bad rep because its all the kids who werent "smart" enough to get into UCLA or UCSD etc. Its the same stuff my friend at Berkeley is learning and its the same stuff any other pre-med is learning, still have to get A's and still have to work hard! College is what you make of it, thats what I have learned.

 

[Syns]

Thank you for the excuse to sit in the front row.

kappa

 

[enchantediris]

Interestingly enough, that's often how classrooms in East Asia are organized -- students in every grade are separated into different classes, with one class including all of the top students, one class including the average students, etc. Students are often seated by their class rank, and test scores are posted publicly in order of descending score. I honestly can't imagine the stress of having to go through that kind of school system... I was stressed enough with the one over here!

 

[ProspectiveKidd]

Who's in the #1 seat? Such a boss feeling that must be.

If someone pressed the issue I doubt he'd be able to get away with that. My professor assigned our grades to a four digit PIN, but someone noticed it was still in alphabetical order. Someone complained to administration and they made him change it.

 

[soadhead]

I always wonder about those people who finish exams super early - are they geniuses, or are they idiots? I feel like it must be one or the other. A seating chart like this might answer those questions!

I have found that when I finish super early, then I've done well on the exam. If I barely have time to finish, it means that I haven't done as well as a wanted to.

 

[Goro]

Sounds like a FERPA violation.

Hey guys,

So my Organic Chemistry professor decided to make our Second Midterm seating chart based off of our Midterm 1 grades. Fortunately, I am in the 17th seat out of 273 seats but i am just curious to hear what everyone thinks about this. Is this cruel for my professor to do? Would love to hear some personal stories about other professors at their schools. Thanks guys!

 

[Terry Toma]

@Theafoni exactly! haha i feel like the people at the bottom are going to be defeated before we even start the exam, he claims its for cheating purposes. The people at the top won't cheat because they are all A students and don't have to cheat and then everyone else will be cheating off someone who did just as bad as them so there is no point.

BS excuse from the prof. If he was worried about cheating, he'd just make multiple test versions with the questions in different orders. That would be way easier than trying to enforce a seating chart for 273 people.

 

[Lannister]

This is bull****. People need to focus on improving themselves, not on how they're doing in comparison to everyone else.

Also...a seating chart in college? Seriously? You aren't children.

 

[Syns]

This is bull****. People need to focus on improving themselves, not on how they're doing in comparison to everyone else.

Also...a seating chart in college? Seriously? You aren't children.

Makes it easier to take down attendance.

 

[Lannister]

Makes it easier to take down attendance.

Taking attendance, yet another ridiculous policy, in my opinion.

 

[jl lin]

I love schools that behave like middle or high school. It really inspires that professional, grown-up feeling, and the anti-spoonfeeding and babying approach to adult education. Way to teach adults! Treat them like children.

 

[deleted731525]

I would be pissed. I destroyed Ochem, but I prefer sitting in the back.

 

[claduva94]

I love schools that behave like middle or high school. It really inspires that professional, grown-up feeling, and the anti-spoonfeeding and babying approach to adult education. Way to teach adults! Treat them like children.

I notice more babying in med school unfortunately. And from what I hear it is definitely not just my school.

 

[Glazedonutlove]

I notice more babying in med school unfortunately. And from what I hear it is definitely not just my school.

most medical schools have at least internal rankings right? for aoa

 

[SOMBound13]

Hey guys,

So my Organic Chemistry professor decided to make our Second Midterm seating chart based off of our Midterm 1 grades. Fortunately, I am in the 17th seat out of 273 seats but i am just curious to hear what everyone thinks about this. Is this cruel for my professor to do? Would love to hear some personal stories about other professors at their schools. Thanks guys!

Seems like this might be somewhat of a FERPA violation.

 

[ProspectiveKidd]

Seems like this might be somewhat of a FERPA violation.

Sounds like a DERPY violation to me.

 

[SOMBound13]

@Theafoni exactly! haha i feel like the people at the bottom are going to be defeated before we even start the exam, he claims its for cheating purposes. The people at the top won't cheat because they are all A students and don't have to cheat and then everyone else will be cheating off someone who did just as bad as them so there is no point.

I don't agree with the idea that, "the people at the top won't cheat because they are all A students." I think by grouping the A students together, if someone is stumped, they may be tempted to cheat since they know they're sitting next to an A student.

 

[claduva94]

most medical schools have at least internal rankings right? for aoa

Yes. Almost every school has a way to convey relative standing in Dean's letters. The algorithms and levels of specificity vary school to school though.

 

[efle]

It would make sense to use this on test day if it's about cheating, but not for the lectures...

The best way to prevent cheating (barring the test being multiple choice, where you can scramble question order) is just to proctor the exam in several rooms so there is space for a couple empty seats between the testers

 

[djsbaseball2014]

@efle the seating chart is for test day

 

[efle]

@efle the seating chart is for test day

That makes a lot more sense...though still seems like there are a lot better ways to prevent cheating

 

[djsbaseball2014]

@efle agreed! He never really directly came out and said that the chart was arranged by grades but it was rumored and by looking at it, my friend got the exact same score as me and is right next to me where as my other friend did average and is right in the middle. The issue with creating duplicate exams is our exams are all free response so it would be harder to grade for the TA's I'm thinking

 

[Hospitalized]

I would be sitting near the same spot in every class if this were the case... boring.

 

[Fedekz]

Seems like an unnecessary addition to an already stressful test day. Perhaps it could work, but I imagine there are better ways to go about deterring cheating. Random seat assignments with more proctors sounds like a better idea. I'm sure some students cheat on the exams and thus have higher grades. Now their sitting in the front next to people they know know their ****, and can just copy off them more.

My Ochem1 and 2 course had widespread cheating. We had weekly short answer quizzes instead of regular exams, then a final ACS cumulative exam. As the semester went on I noticed the two people sitting beside me copying my answers.

This continued through the semester, especially on the ACS final. I would skip around questions, like #37 then to #50, back to #12, etc. and they followed....

Jokes on them, I got a 37% on the ACS final, and so did they!

 

[ZedsDed]

I would think the cheaters would be around 15th to 90th. Seems pretty stupid by the professor at the end of they day.

UC - riverside, they don't call it UC reject for no reason

UCR is a fine school.

 

[jl lin]

It would make sense to use this on test day if it's about cheating, but not for the lectures...

The best way to prevent cheating (barring the test being multiple choice, where you can scramble question order) is just to proctor the exam in several rooms so there is space for a couple empty seats between the testers

And cameras. I am surprised if more schools aren't using this technology. Many work places and other places are. In fact, b/c one does not know, one should just assume they are in place.

 

[jl lin]

Another thing would be to administer the test at two separate times, reducing testers for each testing session and using different exams for each session.

It's sad this seems like a huge problem at schools.

Next thing you know, you will have to pay Prometric and schedule your exams, just for regular classes.

 

[Lucca]

Another thing would be to administer the test at two separate times, reducing testers for each testing session and using different exams for each session.

It's sad this seems like a huge problem at schools.

Next thing you know, you will have to pay Prometric and schedule your exams, just for regular classes.

This is how my ochem class worked. Same exam time but two different rooms for each half of the class so people didn't communicate what may/may not be on the exam between sittings.

 

[Affiche]

My high school physics teacher did this and was very open about seats being arranged by test scores. Our seats were reassigned after every test based on how you scored. I'd like to say that it made me try harder in the class, but it didn't lol. I pretty much accepted that I sucked at physucks and the class became a total joke to me. I was scoring around the class average so I can only imagine how people felt who were scoring below that.

 

[deleted393595]

Hey guys,

So my Organic Chemistry professor decided to make our Second Midterm seating chart based off of our Midterm 1 grades. Fortunately, I am in the 17th seat out of 273 seats but i am just curious to hear what everyone thinks about this. Is this cruel for my professor to do? Would love to hear some personal stories about other professors at their schools. Thanks guys!

Our professor had a stack of tests with randomly generated seat numbers. As soon as you walked into the room, he pulled a test off the top of the stack and handed it to you. Much easier + less stressful system imho

 

[Terry Toma]

Our professor had a stack of tests with randomly generated seat numbers. As soon as you walked into the room, he pulled a test off the top of the stack and handed it to you. Much easier + less stressful system imho

The above is better than arranging people by grade for privacy purposes, but I don't really see the point in any kind of assigned seating at all. If someone comes in late, I'd rather have them just grab whatever seat requires minimal disruption instead of climbing over people to get to a randomly assigned seat that may be in the middle of the row. Also, I like sitting in the front row so that I don't get climbed over in the middle of the test by late-comers and early-finishers. If I'm willing to get to the room early enough, I don't see why anyone should override this preference (not a huge deal if I can't, but there's really no good reason to disallow it).

As mentioned, there are a number of easy ways to prevent cheating that don't involve assigned seating. Have multiple test versions. Reserve enough classroom space to have people sit every other seat. These things seem way easier than a seating chart, regardless of the methodology behind the chart.

At my school, chem tests are in the evening so that they can reserve as many lecture halls as they need to allow alternate seating. They also have test forms A through D. I'm sure that people still figure out ways to cheat, but I'm not sure that any cheating that is possible under our system would be prevented by assigned seating.

 

[ciruji]

...

 

[leonardoson]

Isn't there something called ferpa?

 

[Oh_Gee]

this is the most premed prof ever