Need advice on a college situation

[pink]

Hello everyone! Let me jump right into it.

On Tuesday I emailed one of my professors for an online class asking if she could send me the guidlines for our upcoming research paper so I could get started on it as soon as possible.

My teacher wrote me back (with a rude email no less but we will overlook that) saying that the guidelines for the paper were on the schools website for her class and that I should have known better. Not to mention she also said that the paper was due 3 days later on October 30th, which was yesterday.

I checked the guidelines, at the top it said the paper had to be 8 pages long double spaced. On the bottom it said the paper had to be 4 pages long doubled spaced.

I wrote the professor another email asking her which length was correct, she never wrote me back.

I spend all day Thursday and from 8 am to 8 pm Friday writing and completing this paper. I made the paper eight pages being that she never responded to me and got it to her by 9 pm last night via email.

This morning I wake up and find a mass email from my professor saying that she has pushed the due date to November 15th and that the paper should be no longer than 4 pages double spaced.

Am I wrong to be outraged by the fact that she only wrote this to us AFTER the original due date? Not to mention she couldn't write me back to let me know
A) The papers length.
B) That she changed the due date after I just asked her about it on Tuesday.

Now she is saying it can only be 4 pages, when I worked so hard and wrote 8 great pages. I don't want to have to cut my work done or get penalized for writing too much because she couldn't respond to me in time.

What should I do in this situation? :mickey:

[brownie]

Maybe the due date was changed because two different lengths were given out.

It sounds like you and your professor aren't hitting it off too well. It might be better to talk to your professor in person or on the phone; email isn't always best for these situations. If you have to use email, I would have a trusted friend or mentor review your email before you send it.

I hope things get better. I know it can sometimes be harder to shorten a paper than lengthen it, but it generally beats having to double the length of your paper. Good luck!

[1DisneyNut]

If you had an upcoming paper and you waited until three days before its due date to start emailing the professor questions, that is most likely why you received an email that seemed short or rude. Those are questions that should have been asked about a week to two weeks in advance. You emailing those questions three days before the due date basically told your professor that you have waited until the last minute and have not properly prepared your material/research. With all of that said, emotion is not easily conveyed through email and is often misinterpreted. The deadline extension was most likely a result of you and most likely others bringing the two conflicting length requirements to the professor's attention. The best thing you can do is look on your syllabus for the class, see when the professor's office hours are and go speak with her in person. Since you wrote 8 pages but only 4 are required, I would recommend proofreading it a couple of times and editing it down to the required 4 pages. Since it sounds like you wrote it in one night, most likely it could use some structure and grammatical improvements. I don't know what level class this paper is for as you did not mention it but a good quality paper worthy of an A usually takes a couple of weeks to produce. You do a rough outline to get your main points and ideas on paper and then let is sit while you collect your thoughts and develop ideas for a couple of days. Then come back and build out your ideas, proofread, and then repeat a couple of times. If you do this, you will see a significant improvement in the quality of your papers. Plus you will not be stressed out the day it is actually due. One thing you definitely do not want to do is give the professor some attitude because the end result will be your life being miserable through the semester. Good luck, I'm sure it will all work out fine.

[SBETigg]

You should just chalk it up to experience and lost time and deliver what she asks without complaint. You won't win going up against a professor. She has the advantage. I'm normally not one to suggest just fitting in, going along, and not fighting back-- but in this case, that's exactly what you have to do. I'm sorry to say. It's not fair, but then, life isn't fair and there are times when you can't fight authority. At least it's in college, the time to prepare for things that might happen later in life when you're working for a boss like this (hopefully not! But it happens). Hang in there and feel free to whine to us and others who might understand. :hug:

[pink]

PS- I forgot to mention that I only see this teacher 3 times a semester being that it is an online class. During our last meeting which was October 20th she said that our paper would be due in December. I asked her for the guidelines in October.

She also lives in NYC (our campus is on Long Island) so she is never in school. Everytime I have gone to her desk to ask her questions, she is never there. Every other time I email her, she never responds. It drives me crazy.


I don't know what level class this paper is for as you did not mention it but a good quality paper worthy of an A usually takes a couple of weeks to produce. You do a rough outline to get your main points and ideas on paper and then let is sit while you collect your thoughts and develop ideas for a couple of days.

Being that I really only had three days to do this, I think I did a good job. I'm a journalism major so writing is not a difficult task for me. The first day I researched like crazy and read through all of the information highlighting the most important points. The next day I went through and created a map or a draft of the paper organizing the points. Friday (yesterday) I sat down and wrote the paper for twelve hours, going back to edit to twice. The quality of the paper wasn't my concern, I always push myself to believe that I can do anything in with the difficult time restrictions I had.

[Georgesgirl1]

Sounds like your professor is very disorganized! I had a professor like that in college and it drove me crazy. She had all these rules and guidelines for projects and papers, but would change them constantly. One time she passed out revised expectations for a project the day we turned them in! As much as I hated it, I had to just put up with it for the length of the semester. Then when we did our anonymous course evaluations, I wrote it all down, as did many of my classmates, since we knew the head of the department would review them. I also avoided taking any other courses from her! Hang in there and I hope things get better.

[1DisneyNut]

Ahhhhh, its a journalism class. That sheds a little more light on what may be going on here. College isn't only about teaching you what is in a book. It is also about preparing you for situations that may arise later in your career as well as life. In your major of journalism, things can change fast. New stories develop quickly and you may face a deadline on a story that needs to get out as soon as possible. Sounds to me like she is just throwing you guys a curve ball to see how you can handle it. It may not seem fair but you will most likely run into more of this before you get your degree. I will tell you this though, I have friends that have tried online classes and they have pretty much had problems with all of them that are comparable to this such as class being poorly organized, the instructor not having the correct information in the syllabus (wrong dates..etc), school not properly funding the online program so their server bandwidth is far too low to handle peak loads when most students log on to do their work causing the course websites to be extremely slow and even timing out. My advice is to avoid online classes whenever possible. You will learn much more and be better prepared for future classes if you go to a traditional class with lectures.

[DizneyRox]

Ahhhhh, its a journalism class. That sheds a little more light on what may be going on here. College isn't only about teaching you what is in a book. It is also about preparing you for situations that may arise later in your career as well as life.
Makes sense, however every job I've had it's usually more work in less time, not less work and more time.

[Tick-Tock]

You should just chalk it up to experience and lost time and deliver what she asks without complaint. You won't win going up against a professor.

I agree. Now that she has made it clear that the assignment is four pages, you likely will be downgraded for turning in more than that. Especially for a journalism class, since in that field the length is an important part of a piece.

[1DisneyNut]

Makes sense, however every job I've had it's usually more work in less time, not less work and more time.

Very true, its nearly always more getting piled on and needed sooner. lol

[teambricker04]

I also take classes online (I go soley online, actually) and sometimes it can be very hard to get the correct information via the online classroom or email. Also, if your class is anything like mine, work is not given with a lot of notice or a great amount of time to do the work.

If you feel that this professor is not working with you or for you to help you get information, talk with your advisor. Sometimes there are ways of making a formal complaint about a situation. You are paying a good deal for your higher education, you should be getting your money's worth. I wouldn't just chalk it up to a learning experience if you feel you have been wronged. Take charge :)

[DisneyDog]

Sounds like a professor I had in grad school. She was vague and unhelpful about our assignments, and then she lost them and couldn't grade them. She would forget to show up to class, etc... just craziness.

After I graduated, I got a letter in the mail asking her former students to write a letter of recommendation for her to earn tenure. I threw it out. I always believe that if you can't say anything nice... Well, a few months later I found out she didn't get tenure and was fired. I guess I wasn't the only one annoyed with her.

[pink]

It is not for a journalism class, I am just a journalism major. This class is a basic contemporary fiction required writing course.

[Janmac]

For the last year and a half my niece has been taking college courses at an on-line college. In a couple of classes she's had the same problem - can't get feedback from the professor, despite conflicting info on the syllabus. She has developed a couple of strategies. One is to try to be satisfied with a passing grade, because without proper feedback it's just not possible to submit the work required. Another has been mentioned already, be sure to be frank in the after class survey. And as has also been mentioned: try not to take another of this professor's classes.

One wonders if this professor would even have time to read 4 page papers?

My niece has just started her last history class (:cloud9:) but the professor has posted that he is only in his office on Monday evenings. She's already wondering what this class will be like.

Good luck with this class, your paper (take out the middle 4 pages with no rewrite :D)(kidding only a little), and the rest of your college experience.

Jan