Tag: snowflake

10 Signs of Too-Much-Class-Skipping-Syndrome

The US News had Top 10 Signs you’ve been cutting too many classes. Some of them are outrageously unrealistic. Some of them are so realistic it is heartbreaking.

An example of the latter:
#10 You show up Wednesday at 9 only to find the class meets Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3 to 4.

sleeperThis happened in my eight a.m class this year. A student showed up at twenty after and wanted to know where her class had been moved to. She insisted that she was in the right classroom at the right time. I finally got a look at her schedule, which she had in her notebook. She had the class in that room. But it was at 7:50 on Tues/Thurs. So she was thirty minutes late on the wrong day for a class.

An example of the former:
#3 The hottie you were trying to hook up with is now married to the guy at the end of the row.

Living together, yes. They could be doing that inside a week. But married? Not happening. At least not anywhere I teach.

This type of student belongs in the snowflake compendium.

#8 Your classmates roll their eyes when you do show up and “contribute” to the discussion.

#7 You ask when the midterm is going to be only to find out it was held three weeks ago.

#6 It’s the 10th week of the semester and the prof mistakes you for a prospective student.

Snowflake compendium: “I didn’t have time”

This Snowflake is so busy with their personal life that they do not have time to come to class or do the work. But when they don’t get the work done, they are full of excuses.

“I didn’t have time to do the work.”

“Why not?”

“It was my boyfriend’s birthday and I had to make him dinner.”

“Okay, that was yesterday, but this assignment was made last week.”

“Well, I couldn’t start it early!  No college student does that.”

… Sigh.

A student who never got his work done because he didn’t have time, and who told me frankly that he didn’t have enough money to buy insurance because he had received too many tickets, informed me that he would not be staying in class for the library work because he needed to go to the range and he couldn’t go later because he had to head to Louisiana to go gambling.  This was, he said, something he did every weekend.  My class meeting in the library instead of the room was just a bonus, as far as he was concerned.  (I did tell him that he would be counted absent, but he went anyway.)

Please leave your own stories of this particular kind of snowflake.  I’d love to know that I am not alone.

Snowflake Compendium: “here for the car”

This student, a Snowflake as they are called on the Chronicle of Higher Ed forums, is simply in class because they don’t want to work and their parents are supporting them and offering them bribes.

If they come to class, they will be on time.  If there is homework assigned, they may or may not do it, but they don’t usually whine about not doing well, so that’s a potential double win.  You neither have to grade it nor listen to them complain.

Really, they are Snowflake Lights.  They will melt in the class, but they melt quietly without leaving a stain behind.  Only the W or F you must record bothers you with this student.

Feel free to include your own Snowflake “here for the car” stories in the comments.  Perhaps there are other subspecies that I have not taught yet.