Current Events > How do you feel about Weed-Out Classes? That cause students to give up on major.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Since went back to the site, doesn't seem like it is hitting like it us to but some people are still rating. My coach still getting bad ratings in 2022 LOL.

Calculus is one of the few classes that you can't bullshit through. Pretty much every other subject I've taken, I can easily write essays, do assignments and study at the last minute without putting too much thought into them, and still do alright.

But calculus is the one class I really had to put the time into. I spent a couple hours a day studying, meeting with my professor for office hours and working on my own. In my opinion, this is why a lot of people struggle with calculus, because it requires so much more work than most other classes.

i want to keep the weed in

When I went to university, I failed out in the first semester because they had their weeding out course as the very first one. A large majority of the students failed out so it wasn't just me. You needed an 85% to move on in the program and the first test was worth 30% of our final mark. They had stressed the importance of the textbook and the slides for this test and absolutely none of that had made it into the test. Instead, everything was about what the prof had verbally spoke and your note taking in lessons up to that point is what mattered. I was not prepared for that and obviously most other students weren't either since my high school never taught us proper note taking.

I later heard this from one of my friends who passed that my program had allowed way too many students for the future semesters to be able to handle so they intentionally jacked up the bullshit to cut a large majority of students out. The classes after that first one were waaaaay easier from what I heard. They put more high school prerequisites to reduce the numbers the very next year.

I'm still a bit salty about it later because that program was the only reason I went to that school so I had to go back home and never saw most of the friends I made there again. Not really to upset about it though because looking back, it was a shit major and the people I've kept up with a bit didn't even get a job in the field.

If a student's goal is "get a college degree with the most minimal effort possible" then the student's rankings of "good" or "bad" do not align with the goals of the institution, and therefore are irrelevant.

The ratings aren't for the institution, it's for the prospective students. Now if universities took rate my professor into account when hiring/firing that'd be a big issue.

They do, they are called "student evaluations".

Im taking summer classes for a major in the STEM field. Calculus is required. At the end of the first day I overheard students next to me say this is a weed out class be careful. Didn't know what that meant so had to Google it. After a few weeks into the semester I saw what they meant. Class started with 75 students. Now there are only 6 students including myself.

One person was crying on the last day to drop because she was going to lose her financial aid over not passing the class for fall semester. Another seemed to rage quit the class/major after failing the first test. Leaving the class saying this is why people are going to college less. I been out of school a while so no idea if that is normal to cry over failing tests in class these days. Anyway how do you feel about weed out courses CE? Are they Fair, Next?

Course completion evals and rate my professor aren't the same thing though.

While I think "weed out" courses are necessary (because you want to find out before too late, when you can still change your major)... that number is a little odd.

An unfortunate necessity.

Its far better to learn early in your academic career that you cant hack it in a field rather than getting filtered when youre in your fourth year of a major and realizing you arent cut out for this sort of thing. At least it gives you time to pivot to something you are more suited to.

Have they actually dropped out or do you just mean that attend lecture? Because it's pretty common for class attendance to drop at least 50% by end of semester, and it's gotten substantially worse during and after the pandemic, where kids aren't actually used to attending class.

No, I meant only 6 remaining from the initial 75.
That attrition rate is too high.

It's a bad class if 90% of the class is dropping out.

Instead, everything was about what the prof had verbally spoke and your note taking in lessons up to that point is what mattered. I was not prepared for that and obviously most other students weren't either since my high school never taught us proper note taking.

If people are failing so badly on a 101 course their first semester

Rate my professor is incredibly biased

what reason would a student who had a good experience go to rate my professor for?

obviously its only going to be bad students upset they failed and try to blame it on the professor

anyway, if they cant handle the fundamentals then its better to fail early

I know someone who was a computer science major, but they could not pass pre-calc to save their life. The person took it twice and failed both times. They ended up switching their major to something similar so that the math prerequisites were more lenient.

I understood where they were coming from. I passed pre-calc with a 74%. I needed a 73% to actually pass, so I barely slid by. Then I got an A in calculus, and an A- in Calc 2. Weird how I did well in the two harder classes, but worse in the supposedly easy class lol.

Not everyone is cut out for college. If you struggle with Calc 1, you definitely shouldnt be anywhere near STEM.

If only 6 out of 75 people survived Calc 1, I would wager the problem is with the teacher is really bad.

In other words, you need to actually know the material.

The issue was that the course relevant material was largely in the textbook and slides. One of the questions was complete bullshit like "What charity did the professor work for in the field?" Why would I think to take notes on that?

Obviously I wish I knew how to take notes, but that test was terrible considering only about 50 students moved on from ~250