Should I drop and get a "W"

[afk1994]

I'm currently a freshman and I have to take english as a prerequisite, which isn't so bad except I can't stand my class. I literally want to kill myself. Its a 3 hour credit and we meet Tuesdays and Thursdays for 1 1/2 hours. My teacher is a *****. She has absolutely no idea what she's talking about. I turned in a draft and she wouldn't except it because I had "plagiarized." By plagiarized she was referring to a direct quote from our textbook, which I cited correctly. We basically spend the entire class doing stupid worksheets which take 5 minutes to do and she gives us 30 minutes to do them. When I finish I want to put my head down or sleep or do other work, she walks around like an elementary school teacher and yells at us if we do stuff other than the work from her class even if we're done with it. After all this I decided to stick it out since I only have a month and half left. However, last week I got my first essay grade back. (She doesn't actually grade the essays, she grades our portfolios, which includes our essays and the stupid worksheets we did in class) I got an 80% along with a lot of other people in my class. She's a complete ***** and told a couple of my friends that they didn't turn in some of the worksheets when they were clearly in the portfolio. Even after they pointed that out, their grades didn't change. I had read the essays of some of my classmates who also got 80s and their essays were awful. Grammatical mistakes, incorrectly citing passages, etc. Yet they got the same grade as me. I asked her why I got the grade I got and she basically said that we don't know how to write at a college level and by the end of the class we will and that we'll get higher grades then. That's like giving a calculus class the final exam for their first test and then telling them they'll get better by the end of the semester.

I get my next portfolio within the next couple weeks and if I get a B on that as well I really want to drop the class. I don't want to lower my GPA because of a ***** professor who doesn't know what she is doing, however if I do drop the class I'll get a W. Is it worth it?

Sorry for the rant

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[GopherMD]

Take the B or whatever grade you end up with.

 

[prado]

B as a freshman? Take it. Just keep doing well in the rest of your classes, save the W's for when you slack off senior year and the C's and D's are just around the corner!

 

[BABSstudent]

I'm currently a freshman and I have to take english as a prerequisite, which isn't so bad except I can't stand my class. I literally want to kill myself. Its a 3 hour credit and we meet Tuesdays and Thursdays for 1 1/2 hours. My teacher is a *****. She has absolutely no idea what she's talking about. I turned in a draft and she wouldn't except it because I had "plagiarized." By plagiarized she was referring to a direct quote from our textbook, which I cited correctly. We basically spend the entire class doing stupid worksheets which take 5 minutes to do and she gives us 30 minutes to do them. When I finish I want to put my head down or sleep or do other work, she walks around like an elementary school teacher and yells at us if we do stuff other than the work from her class even if we're done with it. After all this I decided to stick it out since I only have a month and half left. However, last week I got my first essay grade back. (She doesn't actually grade the essays, she grades our portfolios, which includes our essays and the stupid worksheets we did in class) I got an 80% along with a lot of other people in my class. She's a complete ***** and told a couple of my friends that they didn't turn in some of the worksheets when they were clearly in the portfolio. Even after they pointed that out, their grades didn't change. I had read the essays of some of my classmates who also got 80s and their essays were awful. Grammatical mistakes, incorrectly citing passages, etc. Yet they got the same grade as me. I asked her why I got the grade I got and she basically said that we don't know how to write at a college level and by the end of the class we will and that we'll get higher grades then. That's like giving a calculus class the final exam for their first test and then telling them they'll get better by the end of the semester.

I get my next portfolio within the next couple weeks and if I get a B on that as well I really want to drop the class. I don't want to lower my GPA because of a ***** professor who doesn't know what she is doing, however if I do drop the class I'll get a W. Is it worth it?

Sorry for the rant

Take the B and be glad you are finished with the class. Hopefully the B will make you not feel so entitled. Seriously, have you ever gone and asked her about a grade you got? Maybe asked for tips on how to improve or gotten feedback on your essays?

 

[ScienceNerdUofU]

I turned in a draft and she wouldn't except it because I had "plagiarized."

I just thought that I would be a and point out that while you critiqued your English professor for not knowing grammar, you used except in place of accept, lol. Don't take the W unless you are sure that your grade will be poor and you know that you can get an A next time.

 

[mwall003]

Try going in and speaking with your professor during their office hours. If she is still being rude, and you believe you earned a higher grade, go talk to the English Department Head. Getting a "B" freshman year is not the end of the world, just get more As than Bs.

 

[mwall003]

Don't take the W if you can get a B in the class. B > W.

 

[GopherMD]

Don't take the W if you can get a B in the class. B > W.

Especially true for a B in a freshman English course.

 

[afk1994]

Thanks for the advice guys. I really appreciate it. I guess I'll stick it out and hopefully do enough to get an A.

 

[afk1994]

I just thought that I would be a and point out that while you critiqued your English professor for not knowing grammar, you used except in place of accept, lol. Don't take the W unless you are sure that your grade will be poor and you know that you can get an A next time.

Hahaha my bad, I rarely make mistakes as obvious as that. I'm quite the grammar nazi haha.

 

[Lollygag]

B as a freshman? Take it. Just keep doing well in the rest of your classes, save the W's for when you slack off senior year and the C's and D's are just around the corner!

+1 lol especially since it's a non science class and if the worst you will get is a B then I'd stick it out even though I'm sure that will be torture your prof really is a tool lol

 

[TriagePreMed]

This is not the first nor the last ***** professor you will get in college. Just learn to drop before the W grade. I know it's frustrating, but if you can manage a "B" in this class at this point, you should stick it out.

 

[neurodoc]

Try going in and speaking with your professor during their office hours. If she is still being rude, and you believe you earned a higher grade, go talk to the English Department Head. Getting a "B" freshman year is not the end of the world, just get more As than Bs.

Good advice. It's not worth it for the OP to get PO'd at the English Prof. Even if what the OP says about her is true, passing a freshman English class with a B is fine for a pre-med student or a science/engineering major. If the OP were a Lit major, it might be a problem.

By all means the OP should meet with the Prof. to discuss her apparent accusation of "plagiarism." The OP should keep the conversation as civil as possible and avoid a confrontational tone. Plagiarism is a serious offense in the academic world. A student found guilty of plagiarism would have much worse to worry about than a "B" grade.At the least, he'd get an "F" for the plagiarized work, and at worst could be expelled from college.

Many years ago in a far-away galaxy at a major West Coast University before I went to med school, I was a graduate student TA in English. I recall grading an essay of a student who had actually submitted a term paper that was clearly plagiarized. This guy was a member of a campus fraternity. As you may or may not know, frats sometimes keep a "library" of term papers that they share with their brothers for use in classes. This was all before the days of the Internet or even electronic calculators. Everything was kept on paper in file-cabinets...including copies of all the term papers submitted in our classes.

This guy had submitted a term paper on The Scarlet Letter that was clearly copied from a paper written by his frat brother the previous year (another guy who was in my section and who got a B+ for his effort). I gave my student a C-, with a comment that I believed his essay was plagiarized. He came to my office all indignant about the C- grade, demanding that he deserved at least an A-... I said he was lucky that he didn't get an F and a report of plagiarism to the Dean. I suggested that he accept my grade and take this as a lesson about academic honesty. He huffed out and told me that he would "go over my head" and file a complaint and appeal my grade to Professor P, the guy who was in charge of the course (and who also happened to be my PhD advisor). I advised him not to do that, as Prof. P. would probably be much less leniant than I...

He went to Prof. P, who after reviewing the case told him that he would ask me to change my C- grade to an F and pursue a request for academic expulsion. The guy appeared in my office all apologetic and demanding that I insist on giving him the C- grade for the term paper. He said he was a pre-medical student and an F would ruin his chances of getting into med school...(not to mention his being expelled for academic dishonesty).

I told him that he was the one who decided to "go over my head" about the grade, and that since he had effectively done so there was not much that I could do. I said that he would have to live with the F, but I would try to intervene to keep him from being expelled.

I discussed the case with Prof. P, and convinced him to give the guy a break regarding expulsion. He wound up with a final course grade of D+, and never complained to me about that. I do not know if he ever got into med school.

 

[TriagePreMed]

snip

Wow. You're a really chill guy. I would have given him the F from the get-go, but I agree expulsion would be too heavy.

 

[deleted407021]

It's english. Just deal with the bad teacher. I had one for english 1101 who cancelled class 15 times and never emailed us when she did. Jump through the hoops.