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AIBU?

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Original poster

To refuse to help fellow student and up my game?

38 replies

RawDEal · 27/12/2010 14:43

My fellow students and I are currently competing for university places for next year.
I work hard on this course, I listen in class, take notes, have 100% attendance, make sure my assignments are in on time, every time and I put everything into them. As I say, I'm competing for that uni place.

Another student on the course, one I'm quite friendly with has a totally different attitude. She consistantly skips classes, asks me to take notes for her, leaves class early and asks me to take notes etc and she never has her assignments in on time. For instance we had one due on the 14th December. We'd had 4 weeks BEFORE then to get it done. On the 13th she told me she hadn't even started it. She asked for a weeks extension, she got it. A week later, she still hadn't done it. It's now going to be 5 weeks late! Another one of her assignments is going to same way.

Thing is she always expects everyone else to help her out. In the beginning I did but I'm now starting to think maybe I shouldn't. If she can't be arsed to take it seriously, why should I help her out? especially as she's "the competition" for the place I'm trying so bloody hard to secure.

So is it bitchy to just sit and watch her fail the course? I do feel guilty but I'm so sick of being the nice guy and always losing out for it, I'm starting to wonder if I'd get further in life by being a bit more selfish!

OP posts:
DrSeuss · 27/12/2010 14:48

No, if she can't get off her arse, let her fail. You are not causing her to behave like this, you will not be the cause of her failure. I really hope you get that place. Is it a masters or a PhD?

QuintMissesChristmasesPast · 27/12/2010 14:49

You are responsible for yourself and your own learning, and she for hers.

In my first year of uni a group of students started coming to the lecture, left a recording device on the professors desk, and left!

After a few weeks of that, he started just turning them off. When the students complained, he told them it was no point, as their attendance record was already shot, as he noted THEIR NAMES down on the register, not their tape recorders. Grin

If she wants to avoid wasting money on Uni, she should learn to study now, so you are doing her a favour by refusing to share your notes.

In fact, you can prepare other notes for her, with a mess of keywords, and say this is how you take notes.....

BringOnTheGoat · 27/12/2010 14:49

How are you losing out by helping a friend? If she is always late, etc, I cannot see how she will get 'your' place. If you don't want her to have your notes then don't let her but it sounds petty to me.

I never had to work hard at college - am naturally intelligent [smug]- one girl was driven mad by this, flogging her arse off and getting lower grades. She even complained about me not working as hard to a lecturer Hmm. I couldn't understand her attitude towards it all. Why do other people effect how you (or my old friend) do? get on with your own life!

classydiva · 27/12/2010 14:49

At the end of the day she is going to have to sit the exam if she has not done the work for it she won't pass will she.

My son collectively gets together with other students to help each other.

But then he is a personable soul.

ManateeEquineOhara · 27/12/2010 14:54

I know how you feel. It is not bitchy, you need to do the work for yourself not someone else.

What course are you doing? Do you mean she is direct competition for the place you want?

I am on a Masters course of only 4 - it is each to themselves as far as I am concerned, I want to stay where I am and do a PhD, so do 3 out of the 4. If others on my course can't (for example something that happened) deal with nerves and do a decent presentation, well I feel sorry for them, but I am not going to give them loads of help, Uni is all about self directed learning.

classydiva · 27/12/2010 14:57

No reason for you not to give her a copy of your notes, what she makes of them is another matter entirely.

sparkle12mar08 · 27/12/2010 14:57

It wouldn't have occurred to me to help her in the first place...

BoneyBackJefferson · 27/12/2010 15:01

Classydiva

if the friend is bothered about the classes she should be there takng her own notes.

Goat

it is not "petty" to not give omeone your notes, see about for reason.

GrendelsMum · 27/12/2010 15:03

Having your notes won't help her particularly - the point of note taking is that you learn by attending the lecture, thinking about what should be noted down, writing it down so it sinks further into your brain, and then looking over your notes. You'll actually learn more by sitting down with her and explaining the most important points of the lecture than she will by having them explained to her.

Notalone · 27/12/2010 15:04

I understand where you are coming from. I am at uni at the moment and I also work my ass off. As a mature student with a child this is my one chance, I don't have the time to restart my course in a year or so like some of the students who are fresh out of college. I ALWAYS help other people out on my course. I have even allowed a couple of girls on my course who were completely stuck to read one of my assignments so they could get the gist of what they need to put before they suffered meltdown. However I do feel resentful sometimes when I put in a lot of work and others don't and then apply for extensions for no reason. Most of the people on my course do work incredibly hard but there is one in particular who used to brag that she would always get an extension because she was slightly deaf and knew how to use it to her advantage.

I might be wrong, but are you on an access course for a health course? If so there are usually no exams so you will really need to stand apart from everyone else, including this person. I don't think it is fair that you have to help her out over and over again and also you are probably doing her no favours because uni may well be a lot stricter with her. If you fail to hand in assignments then you get a "non-submission" mark next to your name which could result in being asked to leave the course. If I were you I would tell her you are no longer able to take notes for her because you are finding it hard enough to write your own etc. At the end of the day you are not watching her fail the course, she is failing the course all by herself

msrisotto · 27/12/2010 15:05

I used to help a friend kindof like the one you describe but gave up. It just annoyed me that I put the effort in, she didn't and got help on top. Give up, it's just aggravating you and not helping her in the long run - she's not always going to have a guardian angel saving her arse, she needs to stand on her own two feet and she's probably going to have to fail before she gets into gear.

Notalone · 27/12/2010 15:06

Shock at the audacity of the tape recorder crew. How bloody cheeky!

WhereYouLeftIt · 27/12/2010 15:06

It is not bitchy to watch her fail. She is not your responsibility, and I would imagine your time is pretty fully occupied with your own studies.

"Thing is she always expects everyone else to help her out." Well, the sooner she learns that she shouldn't expect others to dig her out of a hole of her own making, the better. Then she can maybe get herself on track all the sooner.

You would actually be doing her a favour in the long-term if you did refuse to help her. Just don't expect her to see to like that.

mamatomany · 27/12/2010 15:09

Do you know her circumstances ? I'm often late but then i have 4 children who have all caught colds and then gave them to me too so my attendance isn't 100% do i deserve to fail too ?
Am so lucky my course mates aren't nasty cows like some here.

BringOnTheGoat · 27/12/2010 15:11

I find it petty - noone has to agree with me. I find it petty as OP was letting her have copies of notes and is now changing her mind, presumably cos of the competition aspect. All a bit daft.

Don't let her have your notes, up to you OP but still can't see how it effects you. I have always let my friends have copies of my notes - having said that they were no use to anyone else - usually few key words and some doodles!

ManateeEquineOhara · 27/12/2010 15:26

Mamatomany - there is a difference to being genuinely held up, or just lazy/unwilling.

mamatomany · 27/12/2010 15:27

Yes there is and that needs to be established if there's a genuine problem or not.

petratsdontsmell · 27/12/2010 16:01

'How it AFFEcTS' you, not 'effects you'.

Sorry, I wouldn't usually mention it, but we are talking about getting into University.

petratsdontsmell · 27/12/2010 16:02

Ha Ha, but do please excuse my 'caps lock' moment!

sparkle12mar08 · 27/12/2010 16:06

mamatomany - but it's up to you to put the work in to not fail, not your course mates to do it for you! If they are willing to share note for lectures you've missed, fine. If not, it's their perogative; it's hardly their fault you were late...

peppapighastakenovermylife · 27/12/2010 16:07

Hmmm ... her tutors are not daft. She is unlikely to get a good reference. As an admissions tutor I read those references very carefully.

Your notes are very unlikely to help her much - apart from knowing the topic. They are certainly not going to get her a better grade than you just because of that. Smile

peppapighastakenovermylife · 27/12/2010 16:09

I would always recognise a student who was absent for real reasons and do what I can to help them. Fake reasons / can't be arsed - on their own.

msrisotto · 27/12/2010 16:12

Oh and the girl helped during uni refused to help me the one time I asked her to, Spoke for itself that did.

Sequins · 27/12/2010 16:14

I don't think YABU.

If there is a genuine problem the correct route for dealing with that is for her to discuss it with the tutor.

Also, don't think the "rules" of friendship apply here if she is just a fellow student on a course, if you had some background history together, I don't know, you babysit for each other, you grew up together, or even just really enjoy going out together and you would like to continue the relationship, then fair enough, you would be more inclined to help out. As it is, if she is just someone that you think is a nice (if disorganised) person why should you do any more than you have already done?

mamatomany · 27/12/2010 16:22

sparkle12mar08 - True but thank goodness my classmates are the supportive, nice type of people that do lend notes, I am not asking them to write the essay's for me.

Times have changed, when I took my A Levels and my first degree there was a feeling of camaraderie that seems to be missing these days.
I also found it was give and take and you never know when you might not "get" a certain part of the course and want some peer support.