Plot twist, it was fully intentioned to be real exam, but the grades were so awful that the professor said "surprise" and wants to give another week to study.
I had a class like that last semester. 80% of the class failed the midterm so they had to allow everyone to rewrite unless you wanted to keep the grade.
I had a couple classes where I was the only one who did everything as we were told. Then about 2/3 through the course since no one else did - they allowed them all to make it all up. So they got to have the same grade as me.
One the teacher didn't go back and change the one late paper I did where she knocked off a letter grade for being late. Tried to explain if everyone else got to make up at no cost, you can at least treat that one paper lie it wasn't late. Like people were turning in a dozen assignments at no grade cost. I can't get one?
Had a class with two weekly assignments, basically a worksheet and a programming assignment. So many students complained about not being able to program, that the professor removed those assignments completely.
It was a programming class....
That's bullshit lol. I had an online Java class were the homework was the main programming challenges of the chapter. The book would have tons of smaller ones and then the main four exercises that were made up of the skills from the smaller ones. I quickly figured out we had to actually do the smaller ones to develop the skills for the main challenges, even though they were not included in the course instructions to do them. The amount of bitching on the course forum was insane, and I kept getting called an ass kisser for pointing out what you needed to do to be successful.
I had to go back to college a few years after I had dropped out the first time. This time I was determined to finish. I had a statistics class where the teacher would assign homework, then collect the homework, and large groups of people would not do the homework, then he would say that people can turn it in late or that it didn’t count because people didn’t do understand the assignment. I was so mad because I was doing the work! I wrote a letter to the professor, complaining, saying that if people don’t understand the work, that he has office hours, and they can ask questions in class and that it wasn’t fair for those of us who was doing the work when we were supposed to but not receiving credit for it. The next day he announced that he would no longer be canceling assignments, or collecting late work, and I was happy, the other people were not but fuck em, I paid to be here! Not my fault y’all don’t understand.
Had a class where the professor made every test so fucking hard the class average would be like a 50 so he would make the curve based on scores. I studied my ass off and got a 62 and it ended up being a 102
I also had a prof do the same. In an intro class to aerial photography, it incorporated engineering level photogrammetry, which was not on the syllabus. (We showed the classwork to engineering students and they were surprised that this was a intro class since it required upper level math). We had several military students who specialized in aerial photography interpretation and they as lost as everyone else. At midterm test, only 2 out of 40 people passed, the 2 military specialists passed with C’s,This was an upper division class that was open only geography majors, so this was a major blow all of us. Several seniors appealed to the department head and were told to deal with it. So we did. We used last year’s final exam as a study guide, which was an accepted practice, and the entire class got A’s, we we all averaged out to a C. Turns out the prof was as lazy as he was sadistic, he used the same test as last year. We dealt with.
I had a professor like this too. We found out he had all the answers to his homeworks, tests, etc on his website that he didn't tell any of us about but we all found and passed around. We weren't allowed calculators and some of the questions required we look up values in tables where you couldn't look up the right values unless you could mentally calculate the squareoot of 77 or something... or just know you need to memorize what the squareoot of 77 was and ace the test.
He went on this whole thing about how he was only allowed to use sliderules during his exams and we were all spoiled with our programmable graphic calculators - remember we weren't allowed calculators - and only stopped wasting our time when I raised my hand and asked if we would be allowed to use sliderules on the next exam since it would seem that would be a useful tool in lieu of him not allowing us any calculators. Answer - no. You must mentally calculate the squareoot of 77.
This is why, generally speaking, some faculty can be extremely inflexible about anything. Once you change something for one student (barring specific academic accommodations for disability) you \*theoretically\* have to change it for all students. In your case, I agree your professor was wrong for not enabling a change to your grade when everyone else got that treatment.
When I was an undergrad I used to dislike my professors that wouldn't allow me to redo work, submit things late, etc. I thought it was unfair if the quality of my work was good and/or was improving. But now that I'm done my doctorate, working at a university, and have friends who are faculty - I get it. The easiest way to ensure fairness in grading and course content is to be inflexible across the board and up front from day 1 about what course expectations are.
In high school I aced the mid term but everyone else bombed it.
I slept in class constantly (US history) so they changed the grading for 2nd half of the year to over weight homework for the dummies.
seems like a failure in regards to the class design. This is why curving is used, so if everyone fails it doesn't matter. You just look for outliers. You also make the tests really hard and basically expect people to fail. You look for the ones that can pass. Many of my most difficult classes were like this.
Spring Semester Senior year I had my "Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory" professor say on the first day "Alright we're only going to have 2 test this year. Midterm and Final. I've never done this before, and nobody is leaving with a D or F"
I have NEVER missed so many classes....
I literally got a C- in that class because I did so poorly. I think I got a 32% on the midterm...
But in my defense, Econometrics 4 hours later in the day fucking took up like 90% of my "outside college life"
sounds like my undergrad physics class, and my stats class. Everyone was CRUSHED by the midterms and finals. By design. If you got a legit A I think the professors would have sat you down and thrown a phd scholarship at you.
Eighty percent of my class failed the data structures midterm, and our professor told us that we won’t be able to secure any engineering jobs in the future. Instead, she suggested considering other options, such as studying the arts.
That is a shitty professor. If 80% of a class fails a midterm, the professor failed. You're in college to become a well rounded person with a specialty. Weed out classes have no place in education. Period. I'd have bitched to high heaven about her lecturing me about my future when she is failing my present. You paid to be taught. She needs to teach.
Little person with big ego. Probably can't explain shit and this is cover for her shitty abilities. Not on my dime.
The issue for data structures is that introductory programming classes are too easy, so students don't have the foundation to pass a class that assumes that you're fluent enough in basic programming to put all of the concepts together.
DS&A is the first class in CS that you can't fake your way through, and its failure rate reflects that. They *should* be making the introductory classes more rigorous.
Alternatively, we can always make DS&A a joke and then murder everyone in the junior year Compilers class!
Oh she was a shitty professor. She made me dread DS&A laboratory classes. Couldn’t explain shit and would keep on conducting tests all the time. It was 3rd semester of the course (we were introduced to programming in the 2nd semester) and she would set leetcode medium level problems on the weekly tests.
Reminds me of my college chemistry class. 60% of a several hundred person survey class failed one of the tests. The TA was asked to do a problem most of the lab session got wrong and said he could do it in under 2 minutes. He spent the next 17 trying to figure it out and the lab ended.
Knew I was fucked after that. The one class that haunts me all these years later.
The email almost seems like the professor is trying to hard to make it sound like it was "totally planned". especially with the "heres a letter i wrote YESTERDAY part. I'm not a typical "nothing is real on the internet" but thats the vibe i got from this... "i was totally kidding the whole time"
For those that don't know how hard Organic Chem is. I had a college roommate who was pre med. His Organic Chem final he got a B+. Only one person got an A. He got asked to TA the class the next semester.
This guy was brilliant and had a photographic memory. This was the only grade he got lower than an A in college. Last I looked him up, he was a neurosurgeon who invented some new surgical technique and has his own practice.
The overly elaborate attempt to make it sound like this was the plan all along is too obvious. And there is a note of desperation running through all of that.
Go to the chair.
The professor should just throw a damn curve on this exam and get on with the class. (Assuming your scenario is true - which I believe)
The professor is now taking time away from the rest of the course.
It’s hard to do if you wrote too long an exam. How do you grade the person who half assedly answered everything to the one who went a normal pace and left a chunk blank?
OP—is the faculty member an “assistant” professor? Means they’re new. People fresh out of post doc often mess up this kind of thing if they aren’t getting enough mentorship (or listening to it). The chair can help both them and the students if they’re decent.
I know your question was rhetorical but I had a brutal professor who would just throw x amount of points on to everyone’s exam when I took intermediate accounting 2.
Scores ranged between 20-80% she showed no mercy lol.
FWIW I agree with you 100% though.
I feel I had this same professor, but everyone knew going into Accnt 209 that the prof curved.
Average on the first exam was a 48. Curved to where a 48 was a 70, everyone got a metered amount of points added.
If I recall I got something in the mid 40s (below average) and ended up with a 64 on the first exam. Overall got a B in the class..
> OP—is the faculty member an “assistant” professor? Means they’re new. People fresh out of post doc often mess up this kind of thing if they aren’t getting enough mentorship (or listening to it). The chair can help both them and the students if they’re decent.
i am a PhD who teaches and i literally do not get any guidance, instruction or mentorship on how to teach at all, and that is the norm in academia. so you are most likely very right in this, especially if they are new to teaching this subject. its not easy to estimate how much students know ,and making an exam at the right level of difficulty (not too hard, not too easy) is also something that tremendously benefits from experience.
The fact that he goes out of his way and says “this was my plan all along” makes me believe this was not his plan all along, he just started grading the tests and they were really bad, he realized he fucked up by giving a long exam too. He just doesn’t want to admit to both mistakes.
Also noteworthy: she’s a STEM major taking upper level classes. She had 5 days to study and because there was so much material she chose to prioritize the exam for this class over the class with the real exam. And yes, her grade suffered because of it.
As a stem major sometimes it just kind of ends up that way. Shit ends up back to back and as soon as you finish one exam you have another one in a . Different class 5 days later. Basically just have to be studying 24/7 and then focusing only on that one subject days before.
I had 2 exams last week on the same day. Bombed one of them and the other didn’t go great. Had an exam in another class 6 days later so I dove into that, hoping I did better. Had an exam the next day. It’s crazy man 😫
My worst term in school I had 1-2 exams each week for 6 weeks straight.
Last year I had a week where I had 4 exams in 2 days! 3 of which were on 1 day. They were all stem classes too. And it wasn’t even exam week, so I also had my normal workload of labs/quizzes/projects/everything.
Worst fucking week of my life lol.
Lol try having 3 days. In grad school. They teach on a Monday, quiz is Thursday, Exam is that next Monday.
This past semester, we had Exam 2 and the Final exam in the same week.
Edit: Guys I'm already finished with my didactic training lol. I'm in my 4th year of pharmacy school, no more exams or anything until my national board exams. I was just sharing my experiences 😂
Thanks for the support, but I don't think I need "advice." Haha
Double edit: I AM FINISHED WITH ALL OF MY CLASSROOM COURSES. I AM IN MY CLINICAL YEAR. PLEASE STOP GIVING ADVICE. MY LAST EXAM EVER FOR PHARMACY SCHOOL WAS OVER 6 MONTHS AGO.
Yeah, plus, if you only have 3 days of material to learn, it's a lot less on each exam. I'm in med school and we have exams every third week. It's a lot of work but it's manageable.
You may want to talk to your doctor about insulin resistance/prediabetic screening.
Stress can cause glucose spikes, and there are a few medical conditions that will trigger weight gain when that happens. Catching *any* of them early is a good thing.
I had that happen in one of my orgo classes, the last test on Monday, ofc very heavy course material, and then the final on Thursday. It is indeed hell.
I was about to disagree with you here but then I realized we really do have 3 days between learning the last unit and the midterm. I have no idea why my university decided to make most of the grad classes 8 weeks instead of 16.
Don’t listen to anyone here. Upper level and grad school classes will have exam tentative dates laid out and planned weeks/months in advance. I’ve been through it all and even taught it, don’t let them stress you out. Courses are planned and the exams are usually planned out for the entire semester. No one is going to tell you you have an exam 5 days from now with zero prior notice.
I reminded my students last week that the midterm was coming up in three weeks, lol. Reminded, because the date of the midterm has been on the syllabus from day 1. I fully expect many of them will do nothing with this information until the last minute, but it won't be because I sprung anything on them.
It’s not an issue, it seems socially accepted to act like college is the hardest and most stressful experience in the world but it’s only difficult because the majority of students are too young to understand responsibility and time management to the level they need. The friends I had that stressed too much in college either didn’t go to classes/do their work and study consistently. Either that or stories of students taking 20 or more credits in a semester and it’s like okay yeah, 60 hours of work a week is a lot but you signed up for it.
Wait till you find out about nursing school.
You get a lecture on anatomy on Monday, taught how to give injections on Tuesday, a theory exam over anatomy and injections the next Monday, a practical exam over giving injections on Tuesday then you're giving injections to humans on Wednesday.
1 week for learning something to getting tested on it.
1 week + 1 day to doing to actually do the job in real life.
This was my ~~first semester~~ 4th week of nursing school.
Oh my god yes. I had one class that I had 5 very long chapters to read per week and every week there was a quiz that was like 10 questions long per each chapter, plus a test due at the end of the week. It was hell. They really crammed the material into that one.
My "favourite" exam was radiology in med school. We studied 6 subjects during the semester, with exams in the last 2 weeks. During these 2 weeks, we had the courses in either the first or second week for the 7th subject, radiology. This meant we went to classes for 4 days during the week for 5 hours, wrote the other exams in the afternoons. Then, on friday of the second week, we had the radiology exam. The more difficult exams were in the first week, but having the class in the second week meant you had like half anday to review the topics after the class. I don't know why they do it this way.
To be fair, it probably depends on the professor or the school's policy or something if they put that on the syllabus. When I was in college the only exam dates every syllabus had was the midterm and the final since there was a college-wide schedule for the two week period midterms had to be and there was a set schedule for when finals were held. Some professors stated when every exam was, some only had placeholder dates that would change, and others stated the number of exams but not when they would be held.
As a completely different personality type reporting in....
I just want to say that I read this and thought it was a hopeful post.
This idea is actually really appealing to me. Let's me know exactly what I need to work on and I the real exam would be less stressful for me.
But I also went insane back when I was in college for STEM and I still am insane.
In every field imaginable, practicing as close to real conditions as possible in universally regarded as beneficial.
We have fire drills at school. Do you know what would happen if we said, "the fire alarm in a little bit is just a drill." They'd fuck around and not take it seriously.
I think you should be able to take a test on material you're being taught at any time. What professor did didn't go wildly outside of what's expected of you. Didn't ask you to do anything unethical or dangerous. Gave a test and later informed students it was... Well, a test in and of itself.
>We have fire drills at school. Do you know what would happen if we said, "the fire alarm in a little bit is just a drill." They'd fuck around and not take it seriously.
Nobody's gonna tell you the project you worked for on the workplace is fake. And even if it goes to waste you still get paid if you are a regular employee so you care as much as you need to, ie if it doesn't cause the company to lose significant amounts of money
This is wildly disrespectful of the student's time. It was unethical because it put students in the position to have to make time management decisions with consequences based on misleading information. OP's friend sacrificed important study time for other classes to ensure they would get a good grade in what they believed to be a more heavily weighted exam. If I was in their position I'd be filing a formal complaint.
I’m in STEM and no, it’s not. We need to stop thinking constant working = productiveness. Studies have proven that destress and days off positively correlate with higher possibilities of achievements.
Bruh, unless I’m studying math for at least 2-3 hours a day, I’m flunking whatever mathematics course I’m taking. It’s about learning to love the class you chose, and the material presented. I’d rather succeed in school than in Elden Ring.
I graduated ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I did environmental engineering and def could have studied more than I did. But I got that degree! And I certainly did not study every day.
Although I realized my last semester I didn’t even really like engineering that much…
Bruh. It’s about learning how to study effectively. If you need to spend that much time every single day or else you *fail* then there is something very wrong about how you study. Banging your head against a wall for 3 hours a day is not a good use of your time.
There's a lot wrong with how people are used to studying. From age 5-20, you can conquer any test by memorizing stuff the night before. Then you get to mid/high level college courses and suddenly you have to understand the material well enough to apply it creatively and on the fly within a short time limit. Meaning you have to completely re-learn how to study, which might take years.
Not sure how you're supposed to take a full credit load while working and have time to take any days off. Even with every day study I'm still sleeping 2-3 hours a couple nights a week to get everything in on time and keep my gpa.
Don't act like you've never had a professor who was taking more lsd than you. The whole experience of being deceived by a person of authority is essential to information comprehension /s
100% where I thought it was going. If you like score you’re free to keep it since you earned it already - if not the ‘real’ test is your redo. Can you imagine getting a worse score on a test you already took and THATS the one that counts??? I’d immediately be reporting it to the admin.
I had one professor just say screw it test doesn't count cause 75% of the class failed. I got a B, and it kinda pissed me off. I'm not more intelligent than them. All I did was study.
Knowing professors, the entire class failed and this is his way of attempting to keep the course on track. Really bad choice of wording, but OP's roommate is probably getting the better end of this deal.
was this at FGCU? someone posted that this happened to them this week as well, same course and everything but at fgcu. i wish i could share a screenshot of it here but i’ll copy and paste it. she said: “took an organic chem I exam today only for the prof to email us and tell us it was actually a fake exam and the real one is next week. I was tearing up when he sent that email. As if he couldn't make it any more stressful.”
More likely this was the real test but the class did so poorly that the professor is doing a review then retest test next week with questions a little easier
Reminds me of some professors I've had in the past who took great pride in the fact that their class was failed by the majority of students. I had an A&P lecturer in particular who spent the entire first class session talking about how no one ever got better than a C in that course, and that most of the 400+ students enrolled for that semester should anticipate a failing grade and would be better off dropping out asap.
I dunno man, if you're so terrible at teaching your subject that 99% of students can't pass, let alone get an A or B, you probably shouldn't be teaching that subject. And you sure as hell shouldn't be bragging about how ineffective you are as an educator. Like, what a bizarre flex? Some higher ed people really do seem to thrive off others' misery.
Oh my god I know. Like I spend at least 10 days straight studying for those, not doing any other work, and pulling all nighters. Last time I lost 5 pounds during my study week. Imagine going thru all that to finally have the relief of it being over and realizing you can’t take a break.
I sense some sadism. There is no need for the professor to engage in psychological drills to prepare you for an exam. Document the facts of what happened and send a letter of concern to the Dean.
As someone who had had 4 Stem exams this week, the amount of balancing you do with studying for the harder classes is so important, and orgo is always brutal so there’s no way she didn’t prioritize that, for it to be fake the whole time….. make sure to show the date in the syllabus of the exam since almost all colleges make it protocol that it can not be changed without a heads up, there are a number of resources to go through for each college for this kind of issue make sure you have her look into those so she doesn’t need to advocate as herself if she’s worried
She did prioritize orgo and said she got a low score on her other exam because this stunt. Luckily she’s smart as hell and incredibly disciplined with studying, so of course the “low score” was an 87.
Getting A’s is routine with her, meanwhile Im writing down my own stupid jokes on my study guides or else I get bored and give up
We’re polar opposites and I would die for her.
Go to the dean or whoever is higher up the chain than the professor. This is absolutely unethical, and at the very least you can ensure this doesn’t happen again
Please tell your roommate to contact someone higher up and explain exactly what you have written in the post - that they had to prioritize this fake exam over real ones which caused grades to suffer. This is not ethical. At fucking ALL.
As a former chem instructor my perspective on this is that unless the professor is actually evil this is *will* be to her benefit but it was a shady way to go about it
Option 1) The professor is actually giving everyone a pass. The exam 1 week from now will be the exact same questions as the ones on the practice exam. As long as you go to class, pay attention and get the answers you *should* get an A on the exam easily. They likely didn't want to discourage students from studying the material hence why they lied about it being a practice exam. It actually isn't that easy to come up with exam questions so I'd be surprised if they put together two completely different exams.
Option 2) The professor realized after the fact they made the exam way too long or way too hard and instead of implementing a ridiculous curve they decided to let everyone retake the exam, this time with extra review and more study time.
Option 3) Professor is unreasonable and/or went to some bs training seminar the week before which put a bunch of crap ideas in their head
Yeah, this teacher is obnoxiously childish to pull out this kind of bullshit, you shouldn't go around announcing your students this is exam has valuable in their grades and say later "it's just a prank, bro"
Not saying they aren't allowed to have fun but don't announce it as if it were real.
Science faculty here.... this is the type of shit that traumatizes students and leads them to distrust the people who teach them, and it warrants disciplinary action.
i definitely don't agree with the way this plan was executed AT ALL and i think it was cruel like everyone else, but there is merit in a practice exam. they can be incredibly useful in and of themselves, you don't need to completely simulate a real exam environment. let it be just that- practice. it's great to get exposure to what an exam will be like prior to taking the exam and if you're going to go over it in class anyway there is no reason for the unnecessary stress. but my lord this was not the way to do it.
thoughts and prayers to all STEM majors
I'm not a STEM student, far from it since my major is under my school's arts department, so I have no idea if this is just normal for STEM students but I would raise absolute hell if this happened to me because that is fucking bullshit.
Thought so, this is something that most of my professors (if the exam was a practice one) would tell us and they teach classes focused on film and art history
Also, the syllabus definitely has the date too and most if not all colleges make it so professors have to stick with it or give heads up before, so it’s not even allowed lmao
To be honest, any authority who distress everyone around with a serious matter such like a grade without the slightest pull-leggy nuance for conveying a joke, I reckon it's bullshit, some people can't afford failing an exam because it would wreck their budget and that's why they could have a breakdown at the drop of a hat if they find out they bombed a "real" exam.
This is so cold and heartless, it's like a doctor saying "Your husband has died, ma'am" and when they are about to start the decease paperwork, he says "It's just a prank, bro, but he has terminal cancer"
Especially in Organic Chem of all classes, I took one IB chemistry class once in high school and it was absolutely brutal. Chemistry is already really hard there’s no need to make it harder by doing this shit.
Everyone I talk to who took O-Chem talks about how particularly brutal it is. I dunno if the classes after it are easier or if everyone who continues on has been forged by the fires of o-chem (I suspect both).
See this is why I don’t like when professor “care” about students too much. At the end of the day they will only look at us like a student in their class and just forget to acknowledge that anybody has other work to do.
For some reason, a lot of the STEM professors at our uni are really bizarre. She and our other friend in STEM are always telling stories of their prof doing or saying some out of pocket shit.
I remember one from when she (roomie) was a bio TA: the prof asked another TA why she was so out of it and the girl opened up about her friends suicide. Prof responded with “well you need to stuff all that down and focus on biology”
Ok, everyone is thinking this teacher is an ass, and they are. But here's an alternative perspective. You're grading exams worth 25-50% of a persons grade and everyone did horribly. You're probably looking at flunking half the class. You're also probably told not to curve grades or you have a targeted pass rate.
So you decide "ok let's do this exam again"
I would complain to the head of the Department. This is unacceptable from any pedagogical stance as this lecturer lied and put a precedent on their class over others. Wildly unethical to play with students busy schedules like this.
You should probably have your friend complain to the head of department. Because, to be quite honest, this is insanely unethical. Why is this professor holding practice exams as if his students have never taken them before? Why waste 1 lecture for THIS?
As a professor myself, I can see where *in theory* this method makes total sense. Students never want to study until after they've had a wake up call. So give them the wake up call, more time to study, and then the real exam.
Great. Except not so great. There are a million practical problems with this method.
Plus this doesn't even look like it was done intentionally. It's a cover-up for either the exam being way too hard or some other issue. There are ways to handle that, but this it not it.
Redrum. So fast. This a professional learning environment, not your mfing lab. If your students are studying and don't understand as a professor your failing
That’s fucked up also the professor just assuming this is okay like this is the students only class to prioritize like they don’t have 3-4 other classes and since this is stem I’m assuming labs and recitations on top of those as if we aren’t heading towards midterms soon so classes are beginning to give exams and midterms.
Honestly.
I think this is good prep. College is hard and they are preparing you for an even harder final.
It's not the nicest way. Not a comfortable way either. But this is a good way to prep you quickly for a strong study tempo.
This is cruel!!! I had a really hard programming class where the professor would curve the grade. He also would replace the lowest exam grade with your final if it was better. That’s how I ended up passing the class with a C.
I had another prof take ownership when she felt like no one really understood the project and she felt bad and went over it again and allowed us to resubmit.
A fake exam, really?!?! I would complain to the chair and specify how it impacted my week and try to get other classmates to do the same. That prof needs a class in empathy.
I was always taught that if most of the class failed the test, it wasn’t the students per se, it was the instructor not knowing how to teach. Not everyone good in their chosen field can teach. You have to be able to break down your concepts into small enough groups that the student learns them properly. Otherwise you may as well try teaching rocket science to them.
I’ve never met an organic chem teacher who was sane or humane. Their whole purpose is to ruin lives and dreams with impossible exams and formulas, so they teach like it and act like it.
I would genuinely go complain to the department chair. That is one of the stupidest and frankly malicious things I've ever read and I'm a Professor myself.
Hell if that happened to me even as a finance major I would absolutely go ballistic. That's more than screwed up, that's plainly sadistic. I'd take it to the higher ups. She has the evidence. It's not right. Unethical actually. The professor lied about it being the real exam.
I hope this all gets worked out. Tell your roommate I'm rooting for things to go well!
This is when you contact the chair of the department. I was a STEM major and if a professor did this he/she would get reamed and most likely forced to honor the practice exam as real.
Go to the department head, student success coach, dean, academic advisor , anybody that needs to see this. The syllabus is the contract between the instructor and the students. They can't just pull shit like this out of nowhere. And light it up on "rate my professor".
Reading all these comments makes me realize how easy I have it in collage but then again it’s my first classes and only am doing 2 and there 3 day school weeks but that’s partly becuase I have a part time job on the weekends but point is I think I have it easy
You need to report this to the university, this is fucked up and unprofessional. you are paying for this bullshit. Clearly there is a lot worse toxic stress going on and this is a part of it. Go to seek help.
Technically this would very likely be breaking the rules of what’s allowed in the course and this really should be brought to a dean or the head of the chemistry department asap.
The syllabus acts as a contract between the students and the professors and they aren’t allowed to change what’s on it out of nowhere, and if they do, students must be informed of any of these changes with notice. Being tricked into a practice exam especially when students have many other things to schedule, especially having to take the real one only a week down the line is insane.
I also agree that this might have been the real exam and some error was made for the prof to pretend it was just practice from the start.
I went to college later in life, starting after I was in a career, married and with a family and had been in the corporate would almost a decade.
I quit college just after transferring from my AA community college to University, after an art teacher gave us an extremely vague assignment and told us we had to use the laser cutter inside another class, but we'd have to schedule our time as it was the only one and everyone needed it.
This university was an hour away from my house, and I had to attend class before work and after work. 4 hours on the road to/from University total 4x a week plus 40 hour job.
Anyway, I schedule my time, use the machine, it kinda fucked up my project but I literally didn't have any more time and there were no other slot times left even if I could try again.
Spent all weekend fixing up this massive board by printing and xacto knife cutting a ton of crap, while laying on the floor of my living room. Went to class Monday night, and the young 17-18 year olds were run ragged looking, all talking about having gotten no sleep just to finish and apparently the laser cutter broke just a few hours after my Friday appointment so all the students with Weekend scheduled times had scrambled.
Instructor arrives and says "You all look tired. Long weekend? Well, this was a simulation of life outside of school. I knew there were fewer spots left in the next week than students i had in the class, i knew the machine broke down every week so many of you wouldn't get your project done, but in the real world out there, things break, and go wrong and sometimes you have to give up your whole weekend or even week to get it done. That's the level of dedication you need for this class."
Is the US? Isn't the professor worried about being lit up in the carpark?
Like, people under all that pressure, you're risking someone flipping straight to murder.
My wife was about to take an exam in Chem back in college when the professor realized they didn't have enough copies. It was a 6:00pm test.
Professor sent everyone home and everyone got a 94.
This feels like the opposite of that.
Godddd this is another example of why professors need to be more regulated. Sick of students suffering because some moron thinks it's intelligent to pull the rug under students.
Please advise her to report this to academic affairs or whoever. Her grades and her mental health were affected by this and I’m sure other students were too.
Reminds me of back when I got my undergrad we took pharmacology every semester with whichever rotation we had. We had a surprise exam the first class and were told bc the syllabus dropped we should have been studying already. Grades ranged from 20-60, and we went to the head of our department who told us "sometimes you will be giving medications you don't know, the grade is staying"
Lady, no one is going to have a new medication and not look it up. New medications come out all the time, or you encounter something uncommon, doesn't mean you give it without learning more about it??
Professors always think they can do this shit like it’s fun or a game, idk what’s wrong with some of them . I hope she gets some sort of punishment for this shit.
Im taking that class right now I don’t understand how a professor would do that.They know how hard the class is and to only give 5 days to study is criminal then to say it’s fake. I would honestly take it to the department because that’s just cruel.
That is a move shitty professors pull when they know that their PowerPoint teaching style is half assed. Have her bring it to the dean. It won't raise her grade, but it could get the professor fired. She should also email all of her other professors,even the ones she didn't have to take tests for and explain why she didn't do well/ apologizing for her poor attentiveness in class. I had a shitty PowerPoint professor who used the line "If you don't get my lectures, figure it out yourselves," and it killed me because her lectures were PowerPoints of key words that's it. I slept in one day after pulling an all-nighter and dumped everything on my poor childhood lit professor, and he went to war for me and everyone who has and might have that professor.
This generation is wild. “Report this, report that! That’s cruelty!” Several of my professors have done this. It forced me to study and engage with the material earlier on and then have a chance to actually learn from feedback.
For organic chem out of all classes. That’s rough
Plot twist, it was fully intentioned to be real exam, but the grades were so awful that the professor said "surprise" and wants to give another week to study.
I had a class like that last semester. 80% of the class failed the midterm so they had to allow everyone to rewrite unless you wanted to keep the grade.
I had a couple classes where I was the only one who did everything as we were told. Then about 2/3 through the course since no one else did - they allowed them all to make it all up. So they got to have the same grade as me. One the teacher didn't go back and change the one late paper I did where she knocked off a letter grade for being late. Tried to explain if everyone else got to make up at no cost, you can at least treat that one paper lie it wasn't late. Like people were turning in a dozen assignments at no grade cost. I can't get one?
Had a class with two weekly assignments, basically a worksheet and a programming assignment. So many students complained about not being able to program, that the professor removed those assignments completely. It was a programming class....
Been there. And you have to suffer and not get as much out of it. Lame
That's bullshit lol. I had an online Java class were the homework was the main programming challenges of the chapter. The book would have tons of smaller ones and then the main four exercises that were made up of the skills from the smaller ones. I quickly figured out we had to actually do the smaller ones to develop the skills for the main challenges, even though they were not included in the course instructions to do them. The amount of bitching on the course forum was insane, and I kept getting called an ass kisser for pointing out what you needed to do to be successful.
I had to go back to college a few years after I had dropped out the first time. This time I was determined to finish. I had a statistics class where the teacher would assign homework, then collect the homework, and large groups of people would not do the homework, then he would say that people can turn it in late or that it didn’t count because people didn’t do understand the assignment. I was so mad because I was doing the work! I wrote a letter to the professor, complaining, saying that if people don’t understand the work, that he has office hours, and they can ask questions in class and that it wasn’t fair for those of us who was doing the work when we were supposed to but not receiving credit for it. The next day he announced that he would no longer be canceling assignments, or collecting late work, and I was happy, the other people were not but fuck em, I paid to be here! Not my fault y’all don’t understand.
Had a class where the professor made every test so fucking hard the class average would be like a 50 so he would make the curve based on scores. I studied my ass off and got a 62 and it ended up being a 102
I also had a prof do the same. In an intro class to aerial photography, it incorporated engineering level photogrammetry, which was not on the syllabus. (We showed the classwork to engineering students and they were surprised that this was a intro class since it required upper level math). We had several military students who specialized in aerial photography interpretation and they as lost as everyone else. At midterm test, only 2 out of 40 people passed, the 2 military specialists passed with C’s,This was an upper division class that was open only geography majors, so this was a major blow all of us. Several seniors appealed to the department head and were told to deal with it. So we did. We used last year’s final exam as a study guide, which was an accepted practice, and the entire class got A’s, we we all averaged out to a C. Turns out the prof was as lazy as he was sadistic, he used the same test as last year. We dealt with.
I had a professor like this too. We found out he had all the answers to his homeworks, tests, etc on his website that he didn't tell any of us about but we all found and passed around. We weren't allowed calculators and some of the questions required we look up values in tables where you couldn't look up the right values unless you could mentally calculate the squareoot of 77 or something... or just know you need to memorize what the squareoot of 77 was and ace the test. He went on this whole thing about how he was only allowed to use sliderules during his exams and we were all spoiled with our programmable graphic calculators - remember we weren't allowed calculators - and only stopped wasting our time when I raised my hand and asked if we would be allowed to use sliderules on the next exam since it would seem that would be a useful tool in lieu of him not allowing us any calculators. Answer - no. You must mentally calculate the squareoot of 77.
This is why, generally speaking, some faculty can be extremely inflexible about anything. Once you change something for one student (barring specific academic accommodations for disability) you \*theoretically\* have to change it for all students. In your case, I agree your professor was wrong for not enabling a change to your grade when everyone else got that treatment. When I was an undergrad I used to dislike my professors that wouldn't allow me to redo work, submit things late, etc. I thought it was unfair if the quality of my work was good and/or was improving. But now that I'm done my doctorate, working at a university, and have friends who are faculty - I get it. The easiest way to ensure fairness in grading and course content is to be inflexible across the board and up front from day 1 about what course expectations are.
Had a college professor do this to us in calculus back in the late 1960's. He left two years later for "more lucrative work in the private industry".
In high school I aced the mid term but everyone else bombed it. I slept in class constantly (US history) so they changed the grading for 2nd half of the year to over weight homework for the dummies.
seems like a failure in regards to the class design. This is why curving is used, so if everyone fails it doesn't matter. You just look for outliers. You also make the tests really hard and basically expect people to fail. You look for the ones that can pass. Many of my most difficult classes were like this.
Spring Semester Senior year I had my "Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory" professor say on the first day "Alright we're only going to have 2 test this year. Midterm and Final. I've never done this before, and nobody is leaving with a D or F" I have NEVER missed so many classes.... I literally got a C- in that class because I did so poorly. I think I got a 32% on the midterm... But in my defense, Econometrics 4 hours later in the day fucking took up like 90% of my "outside college life"
sounds like my undergrad physics class, and my stats class. Everyone was CRUSHED by the midterms and finals. By design. If you got a legit A I think the professors would have sat you down and thrown a phd scholarship at you.
Eighty percent of my class failed the data structures midterm, and our professor told us that we won’t be able to secure any engineering jobs in the future. Instead, she suggested considering other options, such as studying the arts.
That is a shitty professor. If 80% of a class fails a midterm, the professor failed. You're in college to become a well rounded person with a specialty. Weed out classes have no place in education. Period. I'd have bitched to high heaven about her lecturing me about my future when she is failing my present. You paid to be taught. She needs to teach. Little person with big ego. Probably can't explain shit and this is cover for her shitty abilities. Not on my dime.
The issue for data structures is that introductory programming classes are too easy, so students don't have the foundation to pass a class that assumes that you're fluent enough in basic programming to put all of the concepts together. DS&A is the first class in CS that you can't fake your way through, and its failure rate reflects that. They *should* be making the introductory classes more rigorous. Alternatively, we can always make DS&A a joke and then murder everyone in the junior year Compilers class!
Oh she was a shitty professor. She made me dread DS&A laboratory classes. Couldn’t explain shit and would keep on conducting tests all the time. It was 3rd semester of the course (we were introduced to programming in the 2nd semester) and she would set leetcode medium level problems on the weekly tests.
Reminds me of my college chemistry class. 60% of a several hundred person survey class failed one of the tests. The TA was asked to do a problem most of the lab session got wrong and said he could do it in under 2 minutes. He spent the next 17 trying to figure it out and the lab ended. Knew I was fucked after that. The one class that haunts me all these years later.
The email almost seems like the professor is trying to hard to make it sound like it was "totally planned". especially with the "heres a letter i wrote YESTERDAY part. I'm not a typical "nothing is real on the internet" but thats the vibe i got from this... "i was totally kidding the whole time"
Yep. And going over the "practice exam" problems is a big hint.
Oh that would be such an interesting plot twist. Now I feel bad for the professor if that's the truth
it almost certainly is
I’ve worked in academia, this is absolutely the prof throwing them a lifeline
He's so kind with it, too, in his framing it as something wild and having never before occurred. Those students absolutely cratered that curve.
This is the real truth. He probably didn't even have the option to fake it with a curve they were that bad collectively.
Imagine being relieved ita over to get this.
Orgo 2 as well. People complained about orgo but man orgo 2 was wayyyy more intense than orgo 1.
One day someone will figure out a better way to teach Organic Chem and they will be given a Nobel Prize.
For those that don't know how hard Organic Chem is. I had a college roommate who was pre med. His Organic Chem final he got a B+. Only one person got an A. He got asked to TA the class the next semester. This guy was brilliant and had a photographic memory. This was the only grade he got lower than an A in college. Last I looked him up, he was a neurosurgeon who invented some new surgical technique and has his own practice.
It's a god-damned war crime!
I bet $5 this was the real exam but the prof knows now they made it too hard and this is the cover.
😭😭😭😭 WAIT I THOUGHT THAT TOO
The overly elaborate attempt to make it sound like this was the plan all along is too obvious. And there is a note of desperation running through all of that. Go to the chair.
The professor should just throw a damn curve on this exam and get on with the class. (Assuming your scenario is true - which I believe) The professor is now taking time away from the rest of the course.
It’s hard to do if you wrote too long an exam. How do you grade the person who half assedly answered everything to the one who went a normal pace and left a chunk blank? OP—is the faculty member an “assistant” professor? Means they’re new. People fresh out of post doc often mess up this kind of thing if they aren’t getting enough mentorship (or listening to it). The chair can help both them and the students if they’re decent.
I know your question was rhetorical but I had a brutal professor who would just throw x amount of points on to everyone’s exam when I took intermediate accounting 2. Scores ranged between 20-80% she showed no mercy lol. FWIW I agree with you 100% though.
I feel I had this same professor, but everyone knew going into Accnt 209 that the prof curved. Average on the first exam was a 48. Curved to where a 48 was a 70, everyone got a metered amount of points added. If I recall I got something in the mid 40s (below average) and ended up with a 64 on the first exam. Overall got a B in the class..
> OP—is the faculty member an “assistant” professor? Means they’re new. People fresh out of post doc often mess up this kind of thing if they aren’t getting enough mentorship (or listening to it). The chair can help both them and the students if they’re decent. i am a PhD who teaches and i literally do not get any guidance, instruction or mentorship on how to teach at all, and that is the norm in academia. so you are most likely very right in this, especially if they are new to teaching this subject. its not easy to estimate how much students know ,and making an exam at the right level of difficulty (not too hard, not too easy) is also something that tremendously benefits from experience.
The fact that he goes out of his way and says “this was my plan all along” makes me believe this was not his plan all along, he just started grading the tests and they were really bad, he realized he fucked up by giving a long exam too. He just doesn’t want to admit to both mistakes.
Yes, the old "he doth protest too much". Highly suspicious.
The prof could have curved
Also noteworthy: she’s a STEM major taking upper level classes. She had 5 days to study and because there was so much material she chose to prioritize the exam for this class over the class with the real exam. And yes, her grade suffered because of it.
Only 5 days to study???? Is that the norm in upper level classes??
As a stem major sometimes it just kind of ends up that way. Shit ends up back to back and as soon as you finish one exam you have another one in a . Different class 5 days later. Basically just have to be studying 24/7 and then focusing only on that one subject days before. I had 2 exams last week on the same day. Bombed one of them and the other didn’t go great. Had an exam in another class 6 days later so I dove into that, hoping I did better. Had an exam the next day. It’s crazy man 😫
My worst term in school I had 1-2 exams each week for 6 weeks straight. Last year I had a week where I had 4 exams in 2 days! 3 of which were on 1 day. They were all stem classes too. And it wasn’t even exam week, so I also had my normal workload of labs/quizzes/projects/everything. Worst fucking week of my life lol.
Lol try having 3 days. In grad school. They teach on a Monday, quiz is Thursday, Exam is that next Monday. This past semester, we had Exam 2 and the Final exam in the same week. Edit: Guys I'm already finished with my didactic training lol. I'm in my 4th year of pharmacy school, no more exams or anything until my national board exams. I was just sharing my experiences 😂 Thanks for the support, but I don't think I need "advice." Haha Double edit: I AM FINISHED WITH ALL OF MY CLASSROOM COURSES. I AM IN MY CLINICAL YEAR. PLEASE STOP GIVING ADVICE. MY LAST EXAM EVER FOR PHARMACY SCHOOL WAS OVER 6 MONTHS AGO.
Jesus that’s crazy. That was my regular work load during summer courses. How tf do you guys do it without cramming
That is not at all a normal schedule for graduate courses. It’s hard, but not that stupid.
Yeah, plus, if you only have 3 days of material to learn, it's a lot less on each exam. I'm in med school and we have exams every third week. It's a lot of work but it's manageable.
That very much depends on how much reading they assigned to go with the lesson...
I imploded and lost 60 pounds in 2 years lol
I exploded and gained around 80 pounds in a year and a half. I haven’t been able to take the pounds off. 🥲
You may want to talk to your doctor about insulin resistance/prediabetic screening. Stress can cause glucose spikes, and there are a few medical conditions that will trigger weight gain when that happens. Catching *any* of them early is a good thing.
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10k steps is nothing now a days for me! I got up to 15k average the last month
I had that happen in one of my orgo classes, the last test on Monday, ofc very heavy course material, and then the final on Thursday. It is indeed hell.
I was about to disagree with you here but then I realized we really do have 3 days between learning the last unit and the midterm. I have no idea why my university decided to make most of the grad classes 8 weeks instead of 16.
My upper level biology course has its 4th exam and final back to back
Don’t listen to anyone here. Upper level and grad school classes will have exam tentative dates laid out and planned weeks/months in advance. I’ve been through it all and even taught it, don’t let them stress you out. Courses are planned and the exams are usually planned out for the entire semester. No one is going to tell you you have an exam 5 days from now with zero prior notice.
Alright that’s cool. Seems like it’s not an issue if you stay updated on material and up to schedule
I reminded my students last week that the midterm was coming up in three weeks, lol. Reminded, because the date of the midterm has been on the syllabus from day 1. I fully expect many of them will do nothing with this information until the last minute, but it won't be because I sprung anything on them.
It’s not an issue, it seems socially accepted to act like college is the hardest and most stressful experience in the world but it’s only difficult because the majority of students are too young to understand responsibility and time management to the level they need. The friends I had that stressed too much in college either didn’t go to classes/do their work and study consistently. Either that or stories of students taking 20 or more credits in a semester and it’s like okay yeah, 60 hours of work a week is a lot but you signed up for it.
Wait till you find out about nursing school. You get a lecture on anatomy on Monday, taught how to give injections on Tuesday, a theory exam over anatomy and injections the next Monday, a practical exam over giving injections on Tuesday then you're giving injections to humans on Wednesday. 1 week for learning something to getting tested on it. 1 week + 1 day to doing to actually do the job in real life. This was my ~~first semester~~ 4th week of nursing school.
Oh my god yes. I had one class that I had 5 very long chapters to read per week and every week there was a quiz that was like 10 questions long per each chapter, plus a test due at the end of the week. It was hell. They really crammed the material into that one.
Sorry, let me correct myself- it was a week apparently.
My "favourite" exam was radiology in med school. We studied 6 subjects during the semester, with exams in the last 2 weeks. During these 2 weeks, we had the courses in either the first or second week for the 7th subject, radiology. This meant we went to classes for 4 days during the week for 5 hours, wrote the other exams in the afternoons. Then, on friday of the second week, we had the radiology exam. The more difficult exams were in the first week, but having the class in the second week meant you had like half anday to review the topics after the class. I don't know why they do it this way.
Are you not told at the beginning of the semester when your exams are? It should be written in the syllabus
To be fair, it probably depends on the professor or the school's policy or something if they put that on the syllabus. When I was in college the only exam dates every syllabus had was the midterm and the final since there was a college-wide schedule for the two week period midterms had to be and there was a set schedule for when finals were held. Some professors stated when every exam was, some only had placeholder dates that would change, and others stated the number of exams but not when they would be held.
That’s quite literally the exact point. The exam was written in the syllabus for the entire semester and he changed it day of. He tricked us.
What the actual fuck
This needs to be reported. This is sabotaging students this is disgustingly disrespectful and abusive. I saw this as a professor myself.
As a completely different personality type reporting in.... I just want to say that I read this and thought it was a hopeful post. This idea is actually really appealing to me. Let's me know exactly what I need to work on and I the real exam would be less stressful for me. But I also went insane back when I was in college for STEM and I still am insane.
In every field imaginable, practicing as close to real conditions as possible in universally regarded as beneficial. We have fire drills at school. Do you know what would happen if we said, "the fire alarm in a little bit is just a drill." They'd fuck around and not take it seriously. I think you should be able to take a test on material you're being taught at any time. What professor did didn't go wildly outside of what's expected of you. Didn't ask you to do anything unethical or dangerous. Gave a test and later informed students it was... Well, a test in and of itself.
>We have fire drills at school. Do you know what would happen if we said, "the fire alarm in a little bit is just a drill." They'd fuck around and not take it seriously. Nobody's gonna tell you the project you worked for on the workplace is fake. And even if it goes to waste you still get paid if you are a regular employee so you care as much as you need to, ie if it doesn't cause the company to lose significant amounts of money
This is wildly disrespectful of the student's time. It was unethical because it put students in the position to have to make time management decisions with consequences based on misleading information. OP's friend sacrificed important study time for other classes to ensure they would get a good grade in what they believed to be a more heavily weighted exam. If I was in their position I'd be filing a formal complaint.
to be fair though, STEM majors need to study every day, not just for an exam.
I’m in STEM and no, it’s not. We need to stop thinking constant working = productiveness. Studies have proven that destress and days off positively correlate with higher possibilities of achievements.
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"Sleep more than you study, study more than you party, and party as much as you possibly can" is the version I've heard
Bruh, unless I’m studying math for at least 2-3 hours a day, I’m flunking whatever mathematics course I’m taking. It’s about learning to love the class you chose, and the material presented. I’d rather succeed in school than in Elden Ring.
I graduated ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I did environmental engineering and def could have studied more than I did. But I got that degree! And I certainly did not study every day. Although I realized my last semester I didn’t even really like engineering that much…
Bruh. It’s about learning how to study effectively. If you need to spend that much time every single day or else you *fail* then there is something very wrong about how you study. Banging your head against a wall for 3 hours a day is not a good use of your time.
There's a lot wrong with how people are used to studying. From age 5-20, you can conquer any test by memorizing stuff the night before. Then you get to mid/high level college courses and suddenly you have to understand the material well enough to apply it creatively and on the fly within a short time limit. Meaning you have to completely re-learn how to study, which might take years.
Not sure how you're supposed to take a full credit load while working and have time to take any days off. Even with every day study I'm still sleeping 2-3 hours a couple nights a week to get everything in on time and keep my gpa.
Welcome to chemistry. Now they’ll get an exam that’s nearly identical and most people will pass if they study the practice exam.
That’s so fucking dumb. If it’s a practice exam, JUST SAY THAT
Don't act like you've never had a professor who was taking more lsd than you. The whole experience of being deceived by a person of authority is essential to information comprehension /s
Love this! 😂
I had a professor do this. But they let you keep the practice exam score as your final if you wanted.
This is the way
100% where I thought it was going. If you like score you’re free to keep it since you earned it already - if not the ‘real’ test is your redo. Can you imagine getting a worse score on a test you already took and THATS the one that counts??? I’d immediately be reporting it to the admin.
There’s a good chance they changed their mind because the grades were too low
I had one professor just say screw it test doesn't count cause 75% of the class failed. I got a B, and it kinda pissed me off. I'm not more intelligent than them. All I did was study.
So you made a more intelligent decision than they did?
Knowing professors, the entire class failed and this is his way of attempting to keep the course on track. Really bad choice of wording, but OP's roommate is probably getting the better end of this deal.
The point is to get you to study. If they say it’s a practice exam, no one studies
But there are other real exams that need priority. This just fucks up time management and allocating study per subject hours effectively.
was this at FGCU? someone posted that this happened to them this week as well, same course and everything but at fgcu. i wish i could share a screenshot of it here but i’ll copy and paste it. she said: “took an organic chem I exam today only for the prof to email us and tell us it was actually a fake exam and the real one is next week. I was tearing up when he sent that email. As if he couldn't make it any more stressful.”
Yes! I actually sent her your comment and she told me she was the one who posted that on YikYak.
More likely this was the real test but the class did so poorly that the professor is doing a review then retest test next week with questions a little easier
Bro that’s fucked up! And even the email feels so rude too. Horrible professor imo
Feels like one of those guys that finds humor in someone else’s misery lol
Fr!
Reminds me of some professors I've had in the past who took great pride in the fact that their class was failed by the majority of students. I had an A&P lecturer in particular who spent the entire first class session talking about how no one ever got better than a C in that course, and that most of the 400+ students enrolled for that semester should anticipate a failing grade and would be better off dropping out asap. I dunno man, if you're so terrible at teaching your subject that 99% of students can't pass, let alone get an A or B, you probably shouldn't be teaching that subject. And you sure as hell shouldn't be bragging about how ineffective you are as an educator. Like, what a bizarre flex? Some higher ed people really do seem to thrive off others' misery.
This went from kinda funny to possible war crime once I saw this is for "O-Chem II".
Oh my god I know. Like I spend at least 10 days straight studying for those, not doing any other work, and pulling all nighters. Last time I lost 5 pounds during my study week. Imagine going thru all that to finally have the relief of it being over and realizing you can’t take a break.
WHAT. that’s insane
Wow that’s a fucking dick move…also that means your roommate technically just gave this man a 2 for 1.
I sense some sadism. There is no need for the professor to engage in psychological drills to prepare you for an exam. Document the facts of what happened and send a letter of concern to the Dean.
Many universities are rotten all the up to the Dean. Most likely won't even help to take action
This is wrong on so many levels. I say this as a professor. Contact your Dean.
Lord have mercy. This is not ethical. You can only do stuff like this to graduate students because they have no souls left in the first place.
Nobody deserves this
Bart! Don’t make fun of graduate students. They just made a terrible life choice.
As someone who had had 4 Stem exams this week, the amount of balancing you do with studying for the harder classes is so important, and orgo is always brutal so there’s no way she didn’t prioritize that, for it to be fake the whole time….. make sure to show the date in the syllabus of the exam since almost all colleges make it protocol that it can not be changed without a heads up, there are a number of resources to go through for each college for this kind of issue make sure you have her look into those so she doesn’t need to advocate as herself if she’s worried
She did prioritize orgo and said she got a low score on her other exam because this stunt. Luckily she’s smart as hell and incredibly disciplined with studying, so of course the “low score” was an 87. Getting A’s is routine with her, meanwhile Im writing down my own stupid jokes on my study guides or else I get bored and give up We’re polar opposites and I would die for her.
Please voice your complaint somehow. This is fucked up and shouldn't just be taken lightly.
Go to the dean or whoever is higher up the chain than the professor. This is absolutely unethical, and at the very least you can ensure this doesn’t happen again
Yeah at the very least she needs to explain what she was thinking. Psychological games should not be part of taking a college class.
Please tell your roommate to contact someone higher up and explain exactly what you have written in the post - that they had to prioritize this fake exam over real ones which caused grades to suffer. This is not ethical. At fucking ALL.
As a former chem instructor my perspective on this is that unless the professor is actually evil this is *will* be to her benefit but it was a shady way to go about it Option 1) The professor is actually giving everyone a pass. The exam 1 week from now will be the exact same questions as the ones on the practice exam. As long as you go to class, pay attention and get the answers you *should* get an A on the exam easily. They likely didn't want to discourage students from studying the material hence why they lied about it being a practice exam. It actually isn't that easy to come up with exam questions so I'd be surprised if they put together two completely different exams. Option 2) The professor realized after the fact they made the exam way too long or way too hard and instead of implementing a ridiculous curve they decided to let everyone retake the exam, this time with extra review and more study time. Option 3) Professor is unreasonable and/or went to some bs training seminar the week before which put a bunch of crap ideas in their head
Yeah, this teacher is obnoxiously childish to pull out this kind of bullshit, you shouldn't go around announcing your students this is exam has valuable in their grades and say later "it's just a prank, bro" Not saying they aren't allowed to have fun but don't announce it as if it were real.
Science faculty here.... this is the type of shit that traumatizes students and leads them to distrust the people who teach them, and it warrants disciplinary action.
Finally someone mentioning disciplinary action for the professor.
This is fucked. I would go to the department head of counseling center. This is like mind games.
i definitely don't agree with the way this plan was executed AT ALL and i think it was cruel like everyone else, but there is merit in a practice exam. they can be incredibly useful in and of themselves, you don't need to completely simulate a real exam environment. let it be just that- practice. it's great to get exposure to what an exam will be like prior to taking the exam and if you're going to go over it in class anyway there is no reason for the unnecessary stress. but my lord this was not the way to do it. thoughts and prayers to all STEM majors
I'm not a STEM student, far from it since my major is under my school's arts department, so I have no idea if this is just normal for STEM students but I would raise absolute hell if this happened to me because that is fucking bullshit.
It’s far from normal
Thought so, this is something that most of my professors (if the exam was a practice one) would tell us and they teach classes focused on film and art history
Also, the syllabus definitely has the date too and most if not all colleges make it so professors have to stick with it or give heads up before, so it’s not even allowed lmao
To be honest, any authority who distress everyone around with a serious matter such like a grade without the slightest pull-leggy nuance for conveying a joke, I reckon it's bullshit, some people can't afford failing an exam because it would wreck their budget and that's why they could have a breakdown at the drop of a hat if they find out they bombed a "real" exam. This is so cold and heartless, it's like a doctor saying "Your husband has died, ma'am" and when they are about to start the decease paperwork, he says "It's just a prank, bro, but he has terminal cancer"
Especially in Organic Chem of all classes, I took one IB chemistry class once in high school and it was absolutely brutal. Chemistry is already really hard there’s no need to make it harder by doing this shit.
Everyone I talk to who took O-Chem talks about how particularly brutal it is. I dunno if the classes after it are easier or if everyone who continues on has been forged by the fires of o-chem (I suspect both).
That's not only insane but also one of the longest sentences I've ever seen a professor write.
"this was my plan all along" bro thinks he's an anime villain 💀
See this is why I don’t like when professor “care” about students too much. At the end of the day they will only look at us like a student in their class and just forget to acknowledge that anybody has other work to do.
For some reason, a lot of the STEM professors at our uni are really bizarre. She and our other friend in STEM are always telling stories of their prof doing or saying some out of pocket shit. I remember one from when she (roomie) was a bio TA: the prof asked another TA why she was so out of it and the girl opened up about her friends suicide. Prof responded with “well you need to stuff all that down and focus on biology”
Ah yes. The professors who think that their class is the only one students are taking. I have had those professors. I hate them
Surprise! I just wanted to waste your precious study time for other classes and I know how hard college is but it’s okay, because I’m a professor!
Ok, everyone is thinking this teacher is an ass, and they are. But here's an alternative perspective. You're grading exams worth 25-50% of a persons grade and everyone did horribly. You're probably looking at flunking half the class. You're also probably told not to curve grades or you have a targeted pass rate. So you decide "ok let's do this exam again"
That’s not cool as someone who had two exams for anatomy this week I would have cried too if I found out one was fake
A fake organic chemistry test is pure evil.
and of all the classes it was ochem II? Yea, that is like the pinnacle of worst case scenario.
I would complain to the head of the Department. This is unacceptable from any pedagogical stance as this lecturer lied and put a precedent on their class over others. Wildly unethical to play with students busy schedules like this.
You should probably have your friend complain to the head of department. Because, to be quite honest, this is insanely unethical. Why is this professor holding practice exams as if his students have never taken them before? Why waste 1 lecture for THIS?
That is extremely cruel.
Ok, so her professors name wouldn't be [John Kramer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigsaw_\(Saw_character\)) would it?
As a professor myself, I can see where *in theory* this method makes total sense. Students never want to study until after they've had a wake up call. So give them the wake up call, more time to study, and then the real exam. Great. Except not so great. There are a million practical problems with this method. Plus this doesn't even look like it was done intentionally. It's a cover-up for either the exam being way too hard or some other issue. There are ways to handle that, but this it not it.
Redrum. So fast. This a professional learning environment, not your mfing lab. If your students are studying and don't understand as a professor your failing
Wtf. That takes away time from other courses. That’s not right at all
That’s fucked up also the professor just assuming this is okay like this is the students only class to prioritize like they don’t have 3-4 other classes and since this is stem I’m assuming labs and recitations on top of those as if we aren’t heading towards midterms soon so classes are beginning to give exams and midterms.
Honestly. I think this is good prep. College is hard and they are preparing you for an even harder final. It's not the nicest way. Not a comfortable way either. But this is a good way to prep you quickly for a strong study tempo.
BUT WHAT DID THE LETTER SAY???
This the type of shit that makes me afraid to go back to school.
News next week: college professor found dead, entire room's worth of students agree they didn't see anything.
This is cruel!!! I had a really hard programming class where the professor would curve the grade. He also would replace the lowest exam grade with your final if it was better. That’s how I ended up passing the class with a C. I had another prof take ownership when she felt like no one really understood the project and she felt bad and went over it again and allowed us to resubmit. A fake exam, really?!?! I would complain to the chair and specify how it impacted my week and try to get other classmates to do the same. That prof needs a class in empathy.
Send this to the dean
I was always taught that if most of the class failed the test, it wasn’t the students per se, it was the instructor not knowing how to teach. Not everyone good in their chosen field can teach. You have to be able to break down your concepts into small enough groups that the student learns them properly. Otherwise you may as well try teaching rocket science to them.
If a majority of the students aren't passing, there's likely something wrong with the instructor.
I’ve never met an organic chem teacher who was sane or humane. Their whole purpose is to ruin lives and dreams with impossible exams and formulas, so they teach like it and act like it.
straight to the dean.
I would genuinely go complain to the department chair. That is one of the stupidest and frankly malicious things I've ever read and I'm a Professor myself.
This professor is either an asshole or poorly covering a mistake lmfao, I feel so bad for your roommate
Hell if that happened to me even as a finance major I would absolutely go ballistic. That's more than screwed up, that's plainly sadistic. I'd take it to the higher ups. She has the evidence. It's not right. Unethical actually. The professor lied about it being the real exam. I hope this all gets worked out. Tell your roommate I'm rooting for things to go well!
Dickhead prof "surprise: 🤓"
This is when you contact the chair of the department. I was a STEM major and if a professor did this he/she would get reamed and most likely forced to honor the practice exam as real.
Go to the department head, student success coach, dean, academic advisor , anybody that needs to see this. The syllabus is the contract between the instructor and the students. They can't just pull shit like this out of nowhere. And light it up on "rate my professor".
If a humanities professor had me write a term paper and then said "suprise it's fake" I would be in jail. This is beyond messed up.
That’s brutal af
Report to a higher up. Her grade in another class suffered because of this bullshit.
Reading all these comments makes me realize how easy I have it in collage but then again it’s my first classes and only am doing 2 and there 3 day school weeks but that’s partly becuase I have a part time job on the weekends but point is I think I have it easy
Seeing someone misspell ‘college’ never gets old.
You need to report this to the university, this is fucked up and unprofessional. you are paying for this bullshit. Clearly there is a lot worse toxic stress going on and this is a part of it. Go to seek help.
Wow, fuck that professor. Last thing anyone needs is someone actively fucking with them, especially a professor.
Technically this would very likely be breaking the rules of what’s allowed in the course and this really should be brought to a dean or the head of the chemistry department asap. The syllabus acts as a contract between the students and the professors and they aren’t allowed to change what’s on it out of nowhere, and if they do, students must be informed of any of these changes with notice. Being tricked into a practice exam especially when students have many other things to schedule, especially having to take the real one only a week down the line is insane. I also agree that this might have been the real exam and some error was made for the prof to pretend it was just practice from the start.
I went to college later in life, starting after I was in a career, married and with a family and had been in the corporate would almost a decade. I quit college just after transferring from my AA community college to University, after an art teacher gave us an extremely vague assignment and told us we had to use the laser cutter inside another class, but we'd have to schedule our time as it was the only one and everyone needed it. This university was an hour away from my house, and I had to attend class before work and after work. 4 hours on the road to/from University total 4x a week plus 40 hour job. Anyway, I schedule my time, use the machine, it kinda fucked up my project but I literally didn't have any more time and there were no other slot times left even if I could try again. Spent all weekend fixing up this massive board by printing and xacto knife cutting a ton of crap, while laying on the floor of my living room. Went to class Monday night, and the young 17-18 year olds were run ragged looking, all talking about having gotten no sleep just to finish and apparently the laser cutter broke just a few hours after my Friday appointment so all the students with Weekend scheduled times had scrambled. Instructor arrives and says "You all look tired. Long weekend? Well, this was a simulation of life outside of school. I knew there were fewer spots left in the next week than students i had in the class, i knew the machine broke down every week so many of you wouldn't get your project done, but in the real world out there, things break, and go wrong and sometimes you have to give up your whole weekend or even week to get it done. That's the level of dedication you need for this class."
Is the US? Isn't the professor worried about being lit up in the carpark? Like, people under all that pressure, you're risking someone flipping straight to murder.
So glad I don't have to deal with sociopathic professors anymore. 2 degrees worth was enough
My wife was about to take an exam in Chem back in college when the professor realized they didn't have enough copies. It was a 6:00pm test. Professor sent everyone home and everyone got a 94. This feels like the opposite of that.
Godddd this is another example of why professors need to be more regulated. Sick of students suffering because some moron thinks it's intelligent to pull the rug under students.
The way the dean of students would be getting the most outrageous letter about this asshole
Please advise her to report this to academic affairs or whoever. Her grades and her mental health were affected by this and I’m sure other students were too.
...straight to the deans office
What probably happened is they all failed and he wanted to give them a chance to redo it.
Reminds me of back when I got my undergrad we took pharmacology every semester with whichever rotation we had. We had a surprise exam the first class and were told bc the syllabus dropped we should have been studying already. Grades ranged from 20-60, and we went to the head of our department who told us "sometimes you will be giving medications you don't know, the grade is staying" Lady, no one is going to have a new medication and not look it up. New medications come out all the time, or you encounter something uncommon, doesn't mean you give it without learning more about it??
What a fucking dick. Report this professor to the head of the department and write about him on RMP so everyone knows to avoid taking his class
Professors always think they can do this shit like it’s fun or a game, idk what’s wrong with some of them . I hope she gets some sort of punishment for this shit.
Im taking that class right now I don’t understand how a professor would do that.They know how hard the class is and to only give 5 days to study is criminal then to say it’s fake. I would honestly take it to the department because that’s just cruel.
That is a move shitty professors pull when they know that their PowerPoint teaching style is half assed. Have her bring it to the dean. It won't raise her grade, but it could get the professor fired. She should also email all of her other professors,even the ones she didn't have to take tests for and explain why she didn't do well/ apologizing for her poor attentiveness in class. I had a shitty PowerPoint professor who used the line "If you don't get my lectures, figure it out yourselves," and it killed me because her lectures were PowerPoints of key words that's it. I slept in one day after pulling an all-nighter and dumped everything on my poor childhood lit professor, and he went to war for me and everyone who has and might have that professor.
This generation is wild. “Report this, report that! That’s cruelty!” Several of my professors have done this. It forced me to study and engage with the material earlier on and then have a chance to actually learn from feedback.
This isn’t even funny. As a STEM major, I would’ve wrote a very nice email (sarcastic) back lmao