europe prof's ivle announcement

A comment on "Human Beings and Their Temperament. Pfft."

At the end of one of my prof's announcements:

"I apologize for not noting this point on the syllabus; it just simply did not occur to me that anyone would think of writing a longer version of their first assignment for their term paper, but I seem to need to underline this piece of common sense."

Scathing sia. Maybe either PMS-ing or stressing.

1. It's reasonable for students to ask if they can use the first assignment to bounce off to their second. After all, she did say that they are two different forms of writing (first assignment: more descriptive, second: more argumentative). Besides, emailing her to clarify about it is better than not doing so and handing in an assignment that is off-tangent with requirements, yes? By responding in this manner wouldn't it make students who email to clarify feel stupid and even less willing to make clarifications on assignments than presently? Already many students (cultural thing?) are shy/scared/unwilling for some reason to speak up / clarify with profs; you encourage that and then you lash out like this. Friendly sia. On top of that, some mods and profs DO allow/ even require for students to write the final assignment like an extension of an earlier one. I'm sure not all of those other profs can be described as lacking in pieces of common sense.

2. I think she's mostly pissed that the students are leaving the assignments and clarifications till this late. I know she expects us to (because she did this, and she did so darn well in uni) work on our assignments in good time before the exams, but still, a deadline is a deadline. The deadline isn't HERE yet so why does she have to be so deadly about students starting late on the assignment? Not everyone is in the same circumstance as she was and not everyone has the same study habits she had. So while it's great she's sharing with us how she attained academic success and excellence and wonderfulism, don't get mad when students choose to go about their education some other way. Just grade them accordingly lah. If student A begins assignment one mth in advance while student B begins one week before the deadline and they both write papers of the same standard, shouldn't they receive the same acknowledgement from the prof instead of student A being looked upon better because he/she has the same study habit as the prof?

I hope my prof doesn't come across this blog entry. Might make her angry, and next thing i know i get a F 0.o But i figured she's too busy being excellent to surf blogs of lowly, last-minute students.