Unreasonable requests from students: Sense check

most of these students will have a class whatsapp group for all students, surely you would try there first to get amother student to let you in etc?

but i am a mature student and OMG the number of questions the group gets that could be googled - what are term dates - GOOGLE UNI X TERM DATES :D

Jeez you sound grumpy!

It's not really a big deal to go let someone in when you have a meeting, even if you're a hot shot senior professor.

You need a better system for the booking link. I've worked with not just students but the general public for several decades now, you will always have people not reading or remembering instructions, that is just how it is. Asking them to keep an email forever is just asking for hassle. You must have a module website to post it on?

Well you're a barrel of fun aren't you! Jeez cheer up

I'm with you OP. Another senior prof here and, frankly, it's the undergrads who are like this. They rarely turn up to meetings, wander in to my private office without knocking- you name it, they do it. Taught and research postgrads are nowhere near as bad so I assume they are just a bit closer to human. Yes, itsnot I can imagine they are like that in the workplace too. It rarely gets to me these days and most of the students are lovely - though I do find myself turning into a nursery school teacher to remind them of deadlines/how to do stuff/where the door is

Given the responses on this parenting website I bet you now know where their sense of entitlement comes from don't you OP?

I’m quite surprised by the answers you are getting.

They are missing the link for the tutorial? Why are they not contacting one of their fellow students?

They’ve forgotten their card? Again why not checking with one of the other students first? I mean contacting the tutor you are going to see after exhausting all other avenues, fair enough. As a first port of call? Nope


this ^

Given the responses on this parenting website I bet you now know where their sense of entitlement comes from don't you OP?

and this ^

I'm in despair regularly about some of the things posted on WIWIKAU as well. There are a whole heap of parents out there who baby their dc and don't give them the skills to resolve minor issues (you see that all over MN). There are also a whole heap of both students and parents who have not grasped that University is not school. It is a completely different thing altogether, which involves independent learning from the students - not only for their academic stuff, but around all the things to do with living away from home as an adult.

It is stunning what some parents do for their adult, student children.

I'm really shocked by the responses on this thread! I would never have behaved like this towards my tutors at university - I respected them (and, sometimes, feared them a bit!) as experts in the field. I cannot imagine just casually asking them to let me into the building if I'd messed up and not brought my card for a tutorial, or being so brazen after deleting the "do not delete" email. Do they see tutors as some kind of "help" that they're entitled to approach for any minor issue (including ones they've caused)?

Or maybe the ones who are also trying to fit in time to do thir own research, get their own funding, supervise their PhDs and masters students, mark exam papers for hundreds - because the numbers of the course has doubled without any increase in staff etc ??

I'm going to presume the OP isn't talking about one thing, as a one off, but presenting those 2 examples as examples of a constant stream of growing entitlement that is apparent to her.

Maybe they have issues with executive function - these are the sort of things my ds with ASD might do.

I can't honestly believe you were too lazy to walk downstairs to let in a student and so just said no and so I guess they missed their tutorial - with you!

You sound like a 'senior professional' with a superiority complex. I knew a few like that.

You are most definitely NOT being unreasonable. And all the people on here making excuses for feckless young people are the reason they behave like this in the first place. You only have to read some of the posts to realise this, i e. "should I leave my almost 18 year old alone in the house while I go on holiday...?" Wtf? How are they ever going to grow up and take responsibility for themselves if their mammies keep babying them?

"Absolutely agree BUT your university education was probably free and they are paying £30K for it -so are your 'customers' without them you wouldn't have a job."

I think framing education as being made up of concepts like paying customers and providers is such a bad thing. What happened to a love of learning for learning's sake? Degrees shouldn't just be training courses for work, where you hope to get a good financial return on your investment. Not to mention that academics also do research, write books, etc., to advance their fields of study, and teaching is only part of their job (in many cases).

the only time i would think it maybe reasonable to email the academic to let them in is if its a ONE on One meeting, so no one else around and you would be rude to not say you are late/why etc.

But if its a group thing, your asking them to stop the session for those who arrived on time etc to accomodate the late people. Which isn't on.

I always love it when you get people claiming that the current generation of young people are uniquely feckless and lazy, seemingly unaware that they're participating in a tradition that literally goes back to ancient times. Sorry but it's not the young people, it's just you getting old.

I’m a 35YO Undergrad - yes, the teenagers can be a bit dim and forgetful at times, yes they irritate the shit out of me in the lab at times.

But - it’s their first time living without parents. Some struggle more than others. Some might have NDs or MH issues that you’re not aware of.

If that’s the worst your students do, then, well, going by other threads here, you’ve got off light.

but if I were you I'd remind myself that they pay your wages?

Nope. Try again.

However, many students do actually think this and treat me as though they are personally employing me.

I get it OP. It's frustrating..... not a week goes by where I don't have to take a deep breath and a couple of mins before I respond to an email sounding cheery and helpful.

the only time i would think it maybe reasonable to email the academic to let them in is if its a ONE on One meeting, so no one else around and you would be rude to not say you are late/why etc.

Yes, I said the OP was being a bit unreasonable but assumed it was a one on one meeting where no other students they knew were about.

Neither of those requests are unreasonable. The fees these students pay fund your wages. Have you never forgotten your ID badge or been unable to find an email in your inbox? Most people have and have been fortunate enough that not everyone feels like you that they are too important to help another person out. Unbelievable sense of inflated self worth in my view.

@LaChanticleer you sound like your patience has been worn out. mine is notably thinner.

I feel like generally mine are a good bunch but certainly rudeness and entitlement seem to have increased in recent years. Example, a student getting up to go to the toilet in the middle ofy lecture ( ok if you got to go and all that...) and her friend interrupting me when I played a video clip to tell me I should wait for said friend to get back and being utterly flabbergasted when I said it was tough as we'd just had a break and I needed to move on rather than make the whole class wait.

Another example, we've had doors propped open for ventilation. A student walked into the middle of my lecture. He interrupted me when I was speaking to ask for XXX room. I told him to go to reception but he argued nobody was there and he didn't have his card to allow him through a door to where he was meant to be. MY students thought I was totally mean that I didn't leave my lecture and walk all the way down he corridor to let him through on my card. No empathy for my health condition which means I have trouble walking. No thought that it disrupted my lecture and wasn't nice for me when trying to present complex information to them.

This service mentality is bloody awful.

It's one thing to mess up. We're all human. But a bit of humility sometimes would be nice and empathy for everyone not just other students.

People forget swipe cards. (I forgot my whole rucksack a couple of weeks ago!) For a one off it’s a non-issue, although an example of how academics are being made less productive over time. We’re picking up the jobs of the PAs, security and similar that many people (evidently) still think we have. A one off is a different thing to someone who is always disorganised, or worse someone who doesn’t bother to be organised because they can put the cognitive load on you. I imagine it’s the latter the OP is complaining about.

For emails, again it’s a bit like the above. (Really the info should be on the VLE and students always directed there, but we don’t do that for tutorials.) However, assuming it’s not cognitive offloading, it does reflect a lack of basic email skills. On average students will receive few emails from their tutors. It is very easy to do a search by sender (even if they deleted it) and skim through the small number of results. I wouldn’t be convinced we actually teach people how to do this though.

YANBU - Yes, they should have been more organised.

YABU - With the "Senior Professor" comment as you are feeding into the stereotype of over inflated egos in some academic circles

Oh I feel you op - I teach adults (college rather than university) and I absolutely love my job but sometimes they drive me mad!

Yesterday a woman who was my student for about 4 weeks then dropped out demanded at 4 o'clock that I write her a UCAS reference. It's due in on Sunday - furious when I said no.

A few are currently obsessing over doing past exam papers. I love that they're keen but ask that they use a specific website because it has mark schemes and video walk throughs so they can mark their own.

Nope - they're doing them from random exam boards and expecting me to mark them. I have 143 students a week and have had no down time for weeks because of staff absence due to covid. I physically can't mark anything I don't set. They get so cross!

A few don't like Teams and want me to email them the lesson resources despite them being on Teams. Again - no.

Hmm I’m not sure that telling 20ish years old who need to learn to be independent that ‘they are customers’ at university and therefore should expect a customer services, Incl the professor coming to open the door for them,is actually teaching them to be independent tbh….

This idea that university is a service that you pay for is missing a huge ingredient. The fact that students are there to learn. Whether it’s living in their own, a subject, how to think. And mollycoddling them isn’t going to help them find a job afterwards. Or actually keep that job. Or be happy in that job.