Frustrated.

I've been meaning to blog about something, but each time I sat down to blog I seemed to forget what it was. When I was just walking past CAS, I remembered so I ran into the library to get this out before I forget. I'm enrolled in a basic statistics class, which is necessary for both of my majors. Because it is required to pass before I graduate, I take the class very seriously. The class meets on Tuesdays and Fridays at 3:30-5. For the first week of classes, the professor let us out at 3:45. It was a fifteen minute class. I thought that this was because at the time all we were doing was going over a syllabus and other necessary things to start off the year. As classes went on, I realized that he did this every class. The latest we got out of Statistics was at 4. That means I only had at the most an hour of stats a week. We were given one test, which we all scored fairly well at. Even though he barely taught, the material was clear and we all understood it. Three weeks into the semester, the professor stopped showing up completely. For five classes in a row, which is almost three weeks, we would show up to class and find a note that said "Statistics-- class is cancelled." Because it was a late Friday afternoon class, attendance was down already. On weekends such as Columbus Day, there were only ten of us in the class. When the professor stopped showing up, the amount of people that came to check if we had class declined even more. I'm not a person to skip class for no reason. In fact I have yet to miss a class since I've been here at college. But how is a person suppose to stay motivated when the professor doesn't even show up himself? If the professor shows an attitude of blatant carelessness, then the students will exhibit it as well. I've never been the one to cut class, but his lack of attendance made me consider it. I think the reason that I have this view is because of my past experiences. I was very sick senior year, and missed weeks on end of school. I did a great amount of my work from a hospital bed, turning in assignments via email. Because of this, I don't see skipping class as practical. Senior year I realized how hard it is to do work without being in class, so why would I put myself in that position again? Although I pulled off a 3.6 GPA for senior year, I would never voluntarily go through what I had to do again.

So last week, the remaining faithful students showed up to class to find a new professor. She stated that she was our substitute and possibly our new professor. She looked at my notes, and tried to evalute what we had learned. Unlike our last professor, she taught entirely out of the book. Not once did we touch the book with our last professor. According to Professor #2, we had dabbled in chapters 1-3 so far. After she gave us her general information, she started her lecture. Her teaching style is completely different. She lectures and is not as involved with us as our last professor. Even the notation for writing the problems is different. She was using words that none of us have ever heard of in our life. The only person answering her questions was our tutor that sits in on our class, which was unfair because this girl is a senior who is now in some sort of advanced statistics class. Never being the one to just sit and be quiet when something was wrong, all of the other students kept nudging me to say something to her. So, I raised my hand and explained that we had no idea what her notation was, and no idea what she was talking about. After that, she slowed down and tried to explain it more, but it turned into basically a lecture on 3 chapters in an hour. With her in depth teaching method, none of us understood still. It was really frustrating. I'm very good at math and am very confused in the class right now. When we left the class at 5:05 this time, I realized that was a general consensus. We all prayed that she wouldn't be back next week and that we would have our old professor again. Even though he never showed up, we understood the material and were able to take tests on it. When we got back the next week, she was there again, but this time as our new professor.

Personally, I don't think it's fair. We have spend two months practicing a certain teaching method, and are now being expected to do chapter four statistics in a notation we have never seen. I don't think that it is possible for us to just pick up where we left off. To put it into perspective, it is like saying "Oh, you took two months of Geometry, please solve this chapter five Pre-Calc problem." It seems like everything is really that unrelated. We have only had two classes, but were just given a take home test. She told us that our original grades were lost. This got me really mad, I worked hard for that grade and I studied! I took my time to help tutor the others in the class who didn't understand it. So I raised my hand. I asked if we had our tests, if she would accept that grade. She agreed. I also asked if we tried the take home test and did better if that could be used. She agreed. I was happy with that with high hopes that I could hopefully do well on the test and score an even higher grade. I read through the test when I got back to the room and don't understand a word on it. It's really hard! So now, I'm confused and annoyed. The students should not be punished for this. I think that if we had her from the beginning, I would be okay with her. But as of now, I don't approve becaue I'm not happy with how I don't get it. I'm trying so hard but just failing when I try. It's very frustrating.