GRcade

Karl_ wrote:

Corazon de Leon wrote:And yeah, judging your own work is really difficult. The amount of times I handed in what I thought was a broken mess and received strong marks for it. Or the opposite, when you’re so happy with what you’ve done and are really excited to get the marks back and it comes in as a 55. Soul crushing.

I once worked really hard on an assignment, going above and beyond and doing a lot of research outside of what was covered in the notes for it, and got: "Why did you do this? Stick to the assignment. 55%".

Years later and I am still mad about it. Out of pure petty resentment I put zero effort into any other assignments in that course and, of course, got better marks for it. Some people just shouldn't be teaching.

Obviously we’re in completely different specialist areas so I can’t comment on that tutor’s comments but students should never be denigrated for putting in the effort to research something, even if it falls out with the remit of the question.

In the rare case of a student missing the brief of a question but putting in a lot of time and research, I always make a point of giving the essay as high a mark as I can. Then explaining in detail why it’s had to be marked down.

One of these broke my tiny heart last semester, the guy had written this brilliant essay on the Vietnam War, went into great detail on troop movements and tactical failure on the part of the Americans...and didn’t provide a single source for his work. I knew he’d read it, and I knew he’d put in a ton of effort, but with guidelines being what they are I had to knock it down from a distinction to a Desmond. I actually emailed him to apologise, then beg him to make sure he referenced the next one properly.

Karl_ wrote:

Mini E wrote:I'm gonna play devils advocate here and note that the lecturers are generally quite handcuffed by marking rubrics/assessment criteria, so when external examiners look at a sample of the work, the do it purely by comparing the grade to the pre-submitted criteria. Effort ≠ grades, unfortunately .

It was a postgraduate course, and doing a bit teaching myself now, I genuinely believe the lecturer was just being a twat. Even if he was genuinely boxed in by some very specific mark scheme he could have been a lot nicer about it.

Fair enough. I should have added an addendum saying that there was also a chance that the lecturer was just being a cockwomble.

Mini E wrote:Fair enough. I should have added an addendum saying that there was also a chance that the lecturer was just being a cockwomble.

Yeah like I edited in [I should really pause and read my posts back before hitting submit ], it was the snide comment that got to me.

I actually pretty regularly got thirds in the course I did before that (it just wasn't quite the right course for me) so while the grade was disappointing it was something I was used to. What wound me up was clearly having put some effort in, out of getting quite enthusiastic about what he was teaching, and getting very rude and perfunctory feedback alongside the 55%!

I can't complain ultimately as I think remembering experiences like that will make me a better lecturer going forward. Whenever I interact with a student I'm always looking for positives and trying to encourage enthusiasm. I've been a "weak student" so I definitely consciously try to avoid thinking of them like that altogether, and focus on drawing out what they're capable of.

Karl_ wrote:

Corazon de Leon wrote:And yeah, judging your own work is really difficult. The amount of times I handed in what I thought was a broken mess and received strong marks for it. Or the opposite, when you’re so happy with what you’ve done and are really excited to get the marks back and it comes in as a 55. Soul crushing.

I once worked really hard on an assignment, going above and beyond and doing a lot of research outside of what was covered in the notes for it, and got: "Why did you do this? Stick to the assignment. 55%".

Years later and I am still mad about it. Out of pure petty resentment I put zero effort into any other assignments in that course and, of course, got better marks for it. Some people just shouldn't be teaching.

wtf?

That's me handed everything in. Did a bit of an all-nighter till 4am last night basically coding an application from scratch (will be glad to see the back of VB.net) and doing a test plan lol. As far as I know the units I've passed so far this semester are:

Relational Database Management System (normalisation and creating a database with SQL)
Cloud Computing (a report)
Programming Foundations (C++ and making little Arduino programs (2-way traffic light simulator, larson scanner/Knightrider swoosh, ultrasonic parking sensor and a report on Object Oriented Programming)
Data Science (a shambles)

Also, my Ethical Hacking stuff from the first semester that had a deadline for mid-January and was handed in two weeks before that was just marked the other day lol lol lol love it.

Karl_ wrote:

Corazon de Leon wrote:And yeah, judging your own work is really difficult. The amount of times I handed in what I thought was a broken mess and received strong marks for it. Or the opposite, when you’re so happy with what you’ve done and are really excited to get the marks back and it comes in as a 55. Soul crushing.

I once worked really hard on an assignment, going above and beyond and doing a lot of research outside of what was covered in the notes for it, and got: "Why did you do this? Stick to the assignment. 55%".

Years later and I am still mad about it. Out of pure petty resentment I put zero effort into any other assignments in that course and, of course, got better marks for it. Some people just shouldn't be teaching.

My worst story comes from a introduction to web programming module I had in my first year. My friend (who is now a pro dev at spotify) and I each wrote a basic HTML page by hand, no javascript, but pure HTML 4 and it passed the w3c validator.

The lecturer who was an absolute fraud of a man gave us both C, borderline D equivalent grades. We saw him after the lecture and queried our low marks. He said "This markup is unusual, and this here(pointing to the doctype line) you only usually see that on generated code".

I was so shocked. He essentially accused us of cheating, but rather than doing so formally in a way that would allow us to appeal to the Dean or the board of studies he just gave us a low but passing mark.

If that had been a second year module counting towards my final grade I would have found the courage to do something, but instead we just made fun of him and didn't take the rest of his module seriously.

He was let go from the faculty the following summer.

Ah I'm getting mad just reading that! Sounds like an extremely deserved sacking.

Rodders9 wrote:Sat my final exams online due to COVID-19. Currently waiting on the results. (Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Glasgow).

I got first class! Hooray!

That's awesome, congrats!

Good work, congratulations mate. A night in Ashton Lane to celebrate beckons!

Thank you. Going to uni as a mature student was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Cannot recommend the experience enough.

Great work Rodders!

Many congrats!

Nice work, welcome to the first class club!

Eh I’m happy with my drinking man’s degree.

2:2 no regrets!

Not ideal but worked out OK in the end!

It's not about the grade, it's about the experience.

I totally strawberry floated up my undergrad(s). Hence why I'm back now for a second third chance with this MA.

Beginning to realise what a big job the dissertation is.

What’s the project? I woefully underestimated both my undergrad and Masters dissertations and made a bastard of them as a result.

It's about Roman military blacksmithing, creating a database of finds, locations etc from Scotland then applying early medieval/Viking and social theories of technology and craft to it. It's very interesting (if you're into that kind of thing) but yeah I can see myself getting to the end and making a hash of it. Need to really get moving now.