Tell me about your CF students...

[GameOldBirdz]

Me and a few colleagues last night were exchanging war stories of unbelievable and/of CF students.

Sadly these cases seem to be increasing with the marketisation of HE and there's lots of underlying misogyny but there's humour to be found in there somewhere...

One of my colleagues told us about her first lecture at a new university when she mentioned to the students that she'd just started. At the end of the lecture, a student handed her an evaluation of her performance

Mine would be when a student showed up at my office at 9:45am nearly in tears begging me to let her use my office computer to print her essay (due in at 10am) as her printer had just broken and the computer room was full. I took pity on her. She sat down, plugged in her USB, opened Chrome and went to Facebook . When I challenged her she said he had "plenty of time" as the essay submission was only down the corridor. I threw her out without her printed essay. She filed a formal complaint about me

Every year I get comments in my module evaluations about my hair. I do have funky hair and I do change it often but still...

[IHeartDodo]

Haha I had one who emailed me to say he'd missed my lecture so could I meet him and explain it to him... er no!
The same guy then told his supervisor he was struggling with the material and he thought he might need some extra help! Concerned supervisor (lovely man) emailed me to ask if I could possible help him... I acidly suggested he should try coming to the timetabled sessions first and if he still needed extra help I'd be happy to! Next lecture... he's not there!

[IHeartDodo]

Ooh another - My colleague got an evaluation form where in the "any other comments" box they'd put: "she's fit"

[IHeartDodo]

And don't get me started about the "urgent" emails at 11pm about assignments due the next morning!

[GiantSteps]

I urge my colleagues only to send emails to students between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday.

[FarmerGilesRockfordFiles]

When I was a PhD student, I got an open comment in one of my module evaluations saying "You're really beautiful. I wish I had the courage to ask you out"

[iveburntthetoast]

I had a student many years ago who plagiarised one of my articles in an essay. It was my first & only article that I’d published iunder my maiden name. They had lifted a good 500 words straight out of the article. They clearly thought nobody would recognise it.

[ArbitraryName]

I had just started a job and a student plagiarised an article I'd written in their essay. It was a lovely start to the job.

[BelfastSmile]

3 students handed in identical pieces of coursework, including matching spelling mistakes and calculation errors. It was Maths, and they could easily have copied it across and changed some of the numbers in the examples and got away with it, but they didn't even have the sense to do that!

[allegretto]

A student asked me for my home phone number because she couldn't always come to lessons and she would like me to give her a summary.

[GiantSteps]

because she couldn't always come to lessons and she would like me to give her a summary

I have an allergic reaction to the use of "lessons" in a university. We give lectures, and direct seminars or tutorials. We don't teach "lessons." The fact that more and more undergraduates use the term (and put their hands up in a seminar to ask permission to speak) demonstrates how infantilised they've become. And how much some of them remain complicit in that infantilisation.

[allegretto]

You 're right but in my university language lessons differ from lectures - and are referred to as such. I am not a lecturer but a teacher (unfortunately! )

[YetAnotherSpartacus]

[Marasme]

amazing :)

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Many of my students have been amazing, but a couple stick in mind:

• The student who, when I asked him to stop eating in a lecture, continued. He then filed a complaint and emailed to tell me that, as he had been a soldier and knew how to fire a gun, he could give me the benefit of the doubt, as most students wouldn't, and he would let me off this time. Yes, I was spooked.
  

• The student who assumed I would rearrange meetings to stretch over two more months than agreed, including the period during which my daughter was due. When told I might be busy with a newborn, this student grudgingly accepted my limitations, but suggested I just email detailed notes in lieu of a meeting, since it was very stressful to keep rearranging meetings.

[IHeartDodo]

Bloody hell LRD! What happened with the first one?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Not a lot. My head of department was very sympathetic to me and got the student to apologise, which he did, after a fashion. I never saw him in my lectures again, but I believe he graduated just fine.

[BellaHadidHere]

When discussing my research, one of my students yesterday suggested "You should speak to [insert colleague's name] about this. He's worked a lot in this field and could help you"



(a) I don't fucking need help
(b) This colleague is a very close collaborator already
(c) What the fuck do you know about it

[IHeartDodo]

Thought I'd resurrect this thread as I had another today!
I offered to run an extra revision session as some students are panicking about their exams in a couple of days. I did this by email, and asked anyone planning to come to let me know, so I wouldn't sit around waiting for people.
One student (out of 50 odd) replies. So we agree he'll come at 12:30.
I get to my office at 12:20 and a different student turns up. I answer his question, and he leaves about 20 minutes later. I wait a bit, then email the first student at 1 to say I'll wait 20 minutes longer then leave. No show, so I go.
At 2:30!!! I get a reply saying he couldn't come, as something "very important" came up!
So I acidly replied that it would have been polite to at least let me know, so I don't waste my precious time waiting for him!

[sauceyorange]

Ah lovely students. My favourite one was a student who asked to rearrange exam as they had a family party to attend. I said no and they complained I had previously promised yes 🙄

[Booboostwo]

I have two gems. The second one winds me up even now years later.

A student was completely silent during seminars despite various, gentle attempts to get her engaged. I took her to one side after a couple of weeks to see if there was a problem...turns out she only wanted a third class degree and for that she did not think she had to be bothered to speak.

A Masters student of all things made an utter mess of almost every written assignment. A couple were submitted well after the deadline of the extension he had received, a couple were fails at resubmission and a couple were badly plagiarized. I spent ages collecting all the documentation, e.g. Emails on extension, proof of submission dates, account of plagiarism, etc and he failed his degree on several counts after everyone on the examiners' s board was in agreement. He then appealed, so I spent ages dealing with that. His excuse for the plagiarism was 'I didn't do it and if I did it it's because I am mentally ill' . The nature of his mental illness that ed to plagiarism which wasn't plagiarism was not specified. The worse part of the story was that his appeal was upheld on the grounds that we communicated with his using his private email address. Apparently we should have used his Uni email address even though that had been discontinued as his extensions had run way over the time his course should have ended. How any of that excuses plagiarism mystifies me to this day.

[GameOldBirdz]

I'm so glad that this thread has been resurrected.

No CFs for me since but I love these stories

[LemonysSnicket]

I used to send myself my files on facebook ... are you sure she wasnt doing that?

[Cheeseandcucumber]

I'm a student but would like to contribute on behalf of one of my lecturers who couldn't possible have not thought the student in my seminar was a CF.

Student turned up 30 mins late to a 90 minute seminar and plonked himself dead centre of the class - it had a U-shaped desk layout and he sat in the U, not around it like the rest of us, with no desk. This interruption lasted for a few minutes. Lecturer gently queried the lateness, something like a 'hope everything is ok?', to which student replied 'I don't have to tell you why I'm late, it's personal'.

Next he pulled out a cooked takeaway breakfast. Lecturer pointed to the 'no food or drink' sign and asked him to save it until the break. He ignored him and carried on chomping.

He then took several packages out of his backpack and began opening them - loudly peeling the cellotape and tearing the wrapping. Lecturer asked him to wait until break to open them, to which he responded 'they're all books, one of which is for this module so I need it' and carried on opening them. Interruption lasted for around 10 mins.

After break, during which he chatted loudly on his phone, lecturer was midway through a summary when he interrupts and asks for an explanation of something. Lecturer responds he'd already spent the first 30 mins of the seminar explaining it but he should already know as it was on the reading list. Student responds: 'well I've clearly only just received the book so how could I have possibly read it?' This was in week 8.

The lecturer was so calm throughout and it was at this point, when I could have quite easily tipped the student out of the window, that I decided a career in teaching wasn't for me.

[GameOldBirdz]

Lemonys You're very kind giving her the benefit of the doubt but no she most definitely was just farting around.

She specifically said her file was on USB.

When I asked why she was on FB she specifically said she had enough time to "check it". If she'd have said that her files were on FB I'd have obviously been more understanding.

[GameOldBirdz]

Cheese I'd have asked the student to leave TBH. Teaching i universities isn't always like this- most students are lovely and a pleasure to teach