students Seek Easy ‘A’ Courses
Sunday October 27, 2013
BY MARAM SHALABY
Many students tend to choose their courses based on easy-grading professors, focusing on getting good grades rather than good knowledge from their education, as the Facebook group “Rate AUC Professors” shows.
Students mostly ask for one kind of professors. “Anyone knows an easy international world study course? help!” or “Easiest Arab world course or International Studies course please? Easy A professors and low workload!” are examples of posts on the group.
Sophomores and juniors are usually the ones who try to find easy-graders in order to declare a major or to maintain a satisfactory Grade Point Average (GPA).
“At the beginning of university, even though I wouldn’t learn much, I always chose easy graders to be able to get the required GPA for declaration,” said Ahmed Ali, a business finance junior.
“Now I always choose good professors because I need more knowledge than good grades,” he added.
Hoda Grant, associate dean of undergraduate studies, said that two of the criteria that make a good professor good are fairness and transparency. So, being a tough-grader is as unacceptable as being an easy-grader.
“AUC should work on having the grading system and the rigidity of the academics consistent to be fair to all students across all sections and all courses,” said Salma El Lakany, SU chair for academic affairs.
She believes that grading is one of the criteria upon which a professor should be judged but definitely not the most important one.
“Many students ask me to tell them about which classes are the easy-A ones or who are the easy-graders and I do not give them any recommendations simply because I have not seen or tried taking courses with these professors,” said Grant.
When students complain to her about tough graders, Grant usually suggests that they ask their professor for the reason why they got a low grade and for recommendations to improve it. She also advises them to go to the mentoring unit to attend workshops regarding how to sit for exams and pass them.
She added, “Each student has his own learning style so they shouldn’t assume they would get a low grade just because a professor is known to be tough or vice versa or assume they would get an A without making any effort simply because the professor is an easy grader.”
El Lakany said that the problem might either be in the course system, the philosophy of the professor or the policies of the course.
“We have received some complaints recently regarding that matter [tough-graders] through the [Student Union] help desk and through other means. We first check if the student has a valid case and then depending on each case we find the best way to solve the problem,” said El Lakany.
“Students are not to blame for choosing easy-A courses. There is a problem in the whole system so everyone is to blame,” she said, adding, “I personally would rather not choose between easy-graders and tough-graders, I would rather have a professor who is a fair grader and that teaches me what I deserve to learn.”
The SU is currently working with the administration to change the students’ mindset through improving the quality of education.
