After spending about 4 hours in lab, I leave feeling lower than the dirt beneath my feet. I just sink into myself and feel terrible. Why do I feel so terrible?
Was it because I just spent so much time in lab, only to receive not-so-good data?
Yes and no, but mostly no. My data wasn't the best, but it wasn't completely awful either.
Was it because I did worse on an exam than I thought I did?
A little bit, but I suppose I only started feeling shitty about that after I came home and found out about that. What the f*ck. UGHHHH.
Why do I feel so bad?
I was handed two lab reports from my GSI in lab upon leaving, each of them with a sub-par grade. Sure, a few simple mistakes were made here and there, like accidentally mislabeling an axis in a graph or something. However, my calculations were done correctly, at least. I suppose I did make a mistake where I put in too many calculations into a table.
BUT the last time I turned in a lab report, I put too LITTLE information into a table (or didn't have one since they didn't say explicitly to include one) and I still got points taken off.
I am so confused. I am so confused because the grading policies are not specific at all, and I feel like I constantly get arbitrary points taken off these lab reports. I have been wondering all semester whether there is anyone in that class getting an A ... but I doubt it. So many people get less than spectacular grades on lab reports, and I'm pretty sure all of these people are used to acing things. This is so frustrating for me. There is almost zero chance of me acing this class, and why? I guess it's because my graders always grade things in an unclear way that makes sure that hardly anyone gets an A.
Then again, this is an analytical chemistry class. Perhaps everyone is not so good at collecting spectacular data either, so for that reason our grades suffer. Le sigh.
But, seriously? How the f*ck am I supposed to do well in a class where I don't know how you're grading my sh!t?
Speaking of classes where I don't know how people grade my sh!t ... my anthropology class this semester is just the same way. I CANNOT STAND my GSI for that class. Seriously. He really drives me nuts. He thinks it's so funny how we students will scramble for any point possible. Of course we would, dumba$$, we're students. Most of us CARE about our grades. You're a 7th year graduate student, so perhaps you don't feel our pain. We are trying to get good grades to get into graduate schools or whatever else.
He had just been telling us about how he graded our papers really hard, so that the average ended up being an 80%. Then, he told us that some of us had written our papers really well and set the bar higher, so now he's going to start grading harder as well. AND he told us that because some of us are going beyond the syllabus requirement of 2-4 sources per paper, we all should go attempt to go beyond that, because now 2 sources just isn't enough. These sources are for a paper that is two pages, double spaced. What the f*ck. The grading scale SHOULD NOT change THROUGH the semester, firstly, and secondly, this class is not supposed to be graded on a curve at all! You are supposed to grade these papers absolutely. Dammit, I hate this class only because my GSI is making it so much more difficult.
Anyway, on the way home from lab, my friend and I were talking about how these grades were awful and how we both did so sh!tty on a bunch of our lab reports. She was telling me about something else terrible that had happened to her in another class of hers: her professor wrongfully accused her of plagiarizing a lab report worth 10% of her grade. She gave my friend a zero EVEN THOUGH my friend convinced her that she hadn't cheated. She also backhandedly told my friend that the lab report was well-written and would have received a 95%, and asked my friend to consider dropping the class because there was no possibility of getting an A. WTF. That is ridiculously unfair--my friend never cheated, and has consistently done well in that type of class. My friend had no motive to cheat and because of this wrongful accusation, is now receiving a bad grade.
I just don't understand why, as a professor or as a GSI, it is so hard to be professional and to be straighforward with your students. Stick to one grading scale; if you change your mind, NOTIFY the class officially. You should be working WITH your students towards success, not working against them to watch them struggle and fail. Dammit, this makes me so f*cking angry. I have been a student forever (I know a lot of people have), and I cannot stand it when I feel like my professor or my GSI is blatantly disrespecting me. No, me being an undergraduate in college is not a f*cking joke.
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