Only one thing is missing

It's happened again. Almost every time I teach a course, a student approaches me with the comment that this is the second time around. Usually the complaint is that the student was really wonderful—did all the work, got good grades, etc. Only one thing was fouled up, usually a major paper that was worth a lot of points. And of course, the previous teacher (who was, the student assures me, a real bastard) didn't have any mercy. With a missing paper that was worth 30% of the course and a pretty good average on the rest of the course, the student had a total average of 60% and failed. How unfair!

Now comes the punch line.

These students usually assume that they don't need to do anything for my course except the missing paper. They never attend, turn in homework, or anything like that. The next time I'll see them is on the last day of class. Then I fail them because their average is something like 30%.

How unfair!

I don't know how your high school worked grades, but in college it's not exactly like filling a tank of gasoline. If I have a 12-gallon tank on my car, there's really nothing wrong with putting in six gallons here, three at the next station, and three at the station after that. College courses are more like video games. Yesterday I was playing a Legos Star Wars game with a friend. Every time I fell in the hot lava, I had to begin that stage again. I didn't get to simply climb out of the hot lava—I had to go all the way back to the entrance to the cave and jump from one rock to the next, redoing all the work I had just done.

College is like that. Teachers don't forward their grade books and say, "Suzie Student did very well, but screwed up the last test, so if you will simply let her take that last test we can pass her." Nope. You have to do the whole course all over again. And if you don't choose to show up and do the work in my course, I'll fail you too.