Korean Job Discussion Forums

[rudyflyer]

since the search function ain't working (I think its been garped) I'll restart the whiny univ students based on my day today.

First class at 9AM I had this girl who had 9 absences and 3 lates, univ policy states after 7 unexcused absences its an "F". I tell her that she has failed the course. Well she starts crying, I then leave the classroom to go up to our teacher workroom to hang out before my next class. She follows me up still crying, I send her out. 10 minutes later she comes back still trying to get me to change my mind pulling the Tammy Faye tear machine. I try and reason with her she won't listen another teacher basically chews her a new one about being responsible, she still won't leave. So I decide to ignore her. I go to use the computer, talk some shop with some other students yada yada, she's still there. I go to my next class, she's still there. Apparently she stayed for another 30 minutes before leaving on her own.

This afternoon I have the father of another student call and say he needs to talk to me about his child (thinking it was the moron above I feared for the worst) well the father comes and thank God it wasn't that moron. Apparently his son has been in the hospital since mid April and needed to know what needed to be done about his grade. Being the nice guy I am, I told him, I'd take his midterm grade and make that his final grade (I do it all the time for guys going into the Army). Get this, the father asks me to raise his grade!!!!!!!!! When I told him I wouldn't do anything he wouldn't take that for an answer he stuck around. Finally a TA came in and explained to him I was being nice enough to cut him a break and he left.

Finally, I had a student give me what I knew was a bogus excuse for an absence. I told the student I would not accept his excuse and his absences would count. Well get this, later in the day he went to my wife and tried to get her to take the excuse because I wouldn't. She took and the note just to get rid of him but I still didn't excuse the absence.

And I thought moving to a higher level univ I would see less of these problems

[posco's trumpet]

I received the following letter today (formatting and other errors retained):

[shawner88]

Man, a perfect opportunity to bone her, and you failed her instead?

[Demophobe]

[SuperHero]

[ghostshadow]

[panthermodern]

[Intrepid]

If you want some interesting reading, pick up "The University in Ruins" by Bill Readings. It's about how the university, in the west at least, has lost a lot of its prior function of providing a broad educational base and has become a credentialling institution, or, even worse, an institution devoted to nebulous "excellence." All of which I bring up only as preface to my experience teaching undergraduates in the US, last year: they fairly arrogantly expect to pass their classes no matter the effort they put in!

Just finishing my first semester at uni here and I've had a slew of polite, obsequious letters similar to yours. Talked to the department and, sure enough, we're kindly enjoined to pass everyone. We CAN fail them, of course, if we feel that's absolutely necessary, but it's not what the regular professors do. I'll live with it...when in Seoul. I didn't fail anyone in the US--we tried our best to give everyone a 1.0 (D), but we DID fail people who never showed up, forgot to drop, etc. Those people are now contacting me, here, with medical certificates, proof of current full-time employment, etc.

The most interesting idea I've encountered is that I should give a "D" for plagiarized assignments--no matter what the extent of the plagiarism!--so as to ensure that students at least have a chance of getting HIGHER than a course final "D"!

The way I see it, Korean university can be a joke, but there are students who take it seriously, and they're the ones who will get the good grades. I hope employers here look at transcripts and note the Ds I'll be giving out next week!