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Allow me to demonstrate why I have seen students fail college courses.
In the years I have spent as a graduate assistant and as an instructor at a community college and a four-year university, I have been a witness to several students not making the grades they needed in order to pass a class. Sometimes, there were real-world reasons that prevented the student from being successful, such as a death in the family or illness. In those cases, steps can be taken to work with the student so that their lives outside of the classroom do not cause them difficulty inside the classroom.
In most cases, however, I have seen a great deal of self-sabotage that cause students to sink themselves. I have broken down the most common causes of poor grades that I have seen in to a handy list. Here are the five ways to fail a college course.
1. Please repeat after me: It's in the syllabus. It's in the syllabus. It's. In. The. Syllabus.
Every summer or winter break, I devote quite a bit of time to making a magical document. As I slave for hours at a time over it, I imagine how delighted my future students will be to skim through the pages and discover the spectacular time we will have together.
Instead, on the first day of class, I pass out the syllabus, hit the highlights, and begin discussions on the larger meaning and purpose of history. The class continues to progress through the semester. Gradually, I begin to get questions about when an assignment is due. I have hands shoot up and voices asking how long a paper should be. Another voice chimes in to query whether or not footnotes are required.
It's become something of a joke in higher education that we need to have permanent tattoos that say, "It's in the syllabus." After one particularly grueling round of questions from students about an upcoming assignment, I asked them how many had honestly read the syllabus. Two hands out of twenty-five went in the air.
I have had students miss the final, because they didn't realize that finals week is a maze of different times and days for exams. I have had students miss major research papers. Do not be that student who shows up in tears one hour in to the final exam, because you didn't read the syllabus.
The syllabus is the operating guide to your course. It explains the schedule of the class, when things are due, how to do them, and how the instructor will evaluate your performance. The syllabus is like the manual for your course. It has all sorts of things you really really need to know inside.
For example:
2. "I'm an adulllllllllllllltttttttttt."
Some colleagues and I were at a workshop one Saturday, all of us drawn by the lure of free food, as all starving PhD students are. Over our boxed lunches, the subject of using social media in the classroom came up. Someone introduced us to YikYak. Intrigued, I downloaded it to my phone.
For those of you who don't know, YikYak is the equivalent of the wall in my undergraduate library's bathroom stalls. People write random posts that are completely anonymous. Others can then upvote or down vote them. I discovered that students could be absolutely hilarious; I saw some wonderful jokes. It can also lead to bullying and some pretty terrible things, but that's a story for another day.
At the end of the semester, I checked in on YikYak to see how students were doing. One post I saw over and over again was that students were horrified to discover that the A or B they had all semester had nosedived to D's and F's, because of the professor's attendance policy.
"But what does it matter if I show up if I can pass without going to class? I'm an adult, why can't they treat me like one?!"
First of all, refer to step one so you won't be so surprised at the end of the semester. Secondly, professors are treating you like an adult. In the so-called "real world," your boss will expect you to observe certain rules and regulations. They will probably be laid out for you in an employee handbook (it sort of resembles another document you've encountered and lost somewhere in the bowels of your backpack). If you don't adhere to those rules, you can be written up and/or fired. Professors can't fire you, but they can do the education equivalent: take an axe to your grade.
Sometimes you won't like those regulations in your future job. They may seem arbitrary. But they are the rules, and if you don't obey them, you will find yourself with a cardboard box wishing you had read the syllabus...I mean employee handbook. You are an adult. Act like one.
3. "I'll think about that tomorrow."
There are many famous quotes from the 1939 Academy Award winning movie "Gone with the Wind" One of the ones I strongly remember comes at the end. Scarlett O'Hara is crying on the stairs. She says, "I'll think about that tomorrow."
That defiant proclamation should resonate with procrastinators of the world (who will unite...tomorrow).
There is something to be said for having an approaching deadline and the pressure to finish that accompanies it. For some projects, you also can't predict when the muse will strike. On the other hand, I have seen some horror stories linked to procrastination. I will share one with you.
For the second-half of US History, I have students choose someone over a certain age to interview and write a paper using both the interview and books/articles written by historians. They know about the project from the first day, and I periodically remind them that they need to get the interview out of the way as soon as possible. I always have at least five people available who can be interviewed by students should someone be unable to find a person who meets the requirements. By the end of March, all of my "reserves" had been used by students.
One week before the paper was due, a student emailed me in a panic. He had waited until the last minute and now had no one to interview. All of my reserve people had been claimed, but I managed to find someone for him on campus to interview. Then he didn't show up for the scheduled interview (he didn't read step 2). He failed the project and almost failed the whole class.
Do not wait until the last minute; something can go terribly wrong. Your computer could crash. Books could be checked out of the library. Things happen, and a professor's mercy only goes so far.
4. "Who are you, again?"
My mother has taught at a community college for decades. One day, when I was in middle school, we were checking out at the grocery store. The cashier's face lit up.
"Mrs. May! I'm glad I ran in to you! When is our next assignment due?"
Obviously, this person had not read Step 1.
I could see the panic on my mother's face. She asked the cashier what class he was in. His face instantly fell.
"It's the almost the end of the semester. You don't know who I am?"
We spent the rest of the time checking out in incredibly awkward silence. My mother told me, when we got to the car, that she didn't recognize the young man at all.
College instructors usually have quite a few students, but by mid-semester, we can at least recognize the faces of our students on sidewalks and in grocery stores...unless they are Silent Simons.
It is tempting to become a Silent Simon in a college course. It is safe to sit quietly while the professor leads discussion or asks questions. If you don't risk answering a question or responding to a comment, you won't risk being wrong. It is also tempting to ignore a professor's office hours unless there is an emergency. This is especially easy to do in classes that do not have participation points as part of the grade. (Refer to Step 1)
It is in your best interest to make sure the instructor knows who you are. Go to office hours. Introduce yourself at the beginning of the semester. Participate in class discussion. Answer questions. Many professors I know, including myself, will look at grades at the end of the semester, see students we know who tried very hard throughout the course but are on the borderline (perhaps a 68 or an 89), and we will find the points to bump them to the next grade. It is difficult to be that generous with a Silent Simon.
5. The Amazing Duplicates
I asked my students to fill-out a mid-semester evaluation, so that if there was something that consensus said needed to be changed, I had time to change it. One thing that struck me was one student who said, "Ms. May, you are a push-over."
I can be a bit of a push-over. If a student comes to me in tears because they couldn't get their car fixed in time to take a quiz, I will immediately let them retake it. My excused absence policy is super lenient. I give extra credit out like Oprah used to on her Christmas programs (You get five points! And you get five points!)
I do not mess around when it comes to cheating or plagiarism. I don't know any professor who does. The fastest way to fail a college course, faster than any of the other four steps listed here, is to commit academic dishonesty.
Cheating on an exam by copying off a neighbor, sneaking in a filled-in blue book, somehow looking at your phone, etc. is pretty straight-forward. Trying to submit someone else's paper as your own is also a pretty clear-cut case of cheating. I once had two students, roommates, turn in take-home assignments that were practically identical. They claimed they didn't know they couldn't work on it together. Unless your professor tells you something is a group project or you can work on it together, you cannot turn in work that is obviously the product of collaboration (refer to step 2).
Plagiarism, however, does have gray areas. Sometimes it is unclear if taking something from someone else's work and putting it in to your own words is plagiarism. Do you have to cite the fact that you Googled when the War of 1812 began? (It's 1812. I know it's in the name. It still throws people.) Do you have to cite information that you summarized? How much borrowing is too much?
When in doubt, cite it.
When in doubt, cite it.
When in doubt, cite it.
It is always better to be safe than packing up your dorm. Anytime you copy something verbatim, cite it. Anytime you take someone's words and put them in to your own (paraphrasing), cite it. If you are having difficulty with the line between your own original work and plagiarism, talk to your professor. He/she will be more than happy to help you.
As I sit here staring at a pile of final exams and research papers, all yet to be graded, I really want everyone in the stack to pass. We've been together, as a class, since January. We have a good relationship, I've enjoyed my time with them, and I want them to do well. All college instructors I know feel the same way. We want you to succeed. We want you to, ideally, enjoy the class. We do not enjoy failing people. Avoid these five pitfalls:
1. Ignore the syllabus.
2. Be irresponsible.
3. Procrastinate.
4. Go incognito.
5. Commit academic dishonesty.
If you do, there is a very good chance that the purple pen of death, as one of my students referred to my favorite grading marker, will spare you.
Next time, I will discuss methods for success in a history or political science course, including study tips and a peek inside of the head of those of us who design social studies courses.
