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DD attended the wrong section of the same course on first day


Pegasus
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She is quite upset with herself. She's a dual enrollment student at the community college and the two course sections are at the same time, in the same building, and in adjacent rooms.  She somehow attended the wrong one.  

 

She has now emailed both instructors explaining what happened and apologizing.  She was able to print off the syllabus of the correct section from online. Next class is Wednesday.

 

Anything else that she should do?

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Nothing. It's fine. She's not the first to do this :) The instructors have seen this before.

She caught it right away, contacted the instructors, will attend the correct section on Wed - that's more than I can say of some of our students. 

Tell her not to beat herself up about it.

Edited by regentrude
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It happens. Some years ago I was teaching a computer literacy class with the course number of 115 in room 109. Down the hall, a colleague was teaching a networking class with a number of 109 in room 115.

 

I passed around the roll sheet but never noticed who signed and who didn't.

 

After 2-3 weeks a student emailed that he wanted to meet with me before class. He said that he couldn't figure out why he had two zeros on assignments when he had been there every class.

 

You guessed it. He was supposed to be down the hall in the networking class. He thought that what I was teaching was too easy...

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Thank you, everyone.  I shared your responses with her and she's feeling better about it all. I'm sure once she's had a chance to attend class on Wednesday, all will be well.

 

We both got a chuckle out of the 109-115 vs 115-109 confusion.  I'm sure it wasn't funny for that poor student.

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Last semester, I signed up to take the very same class I was currently taking and never noticed until the day before the next class started. I thought I was ahead of the game until I had to scramble to find an available seat in the right class! I also missed a full week of classes because of my mistake. In the end, it was all fine, but gee! I felt like a dope!

 

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

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I had a professor admit that once he walked into a giant lecture hall and said "is everyone here for geography 101?" And as 700 students tried to figure out how they ended up in the wrong class HE realized HE was in the wrong building.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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We give finals for mechanics and electricity/magnetism, the two semesters of intro physics, in the same large room. We had a student who was in the mechanics course who took the electricity final exam. Needless to say, that did not go well. You'd think he'd notice that the entire test is over a field that was not covered at all during the semester...

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I had a student once who spent 2 weeks in my finance class who wasn't on the roster.  He kept telling me he registered late but finally, after final rosters came out, I said we had to get to the bottom of it.  He pulled up his schedule on his computer--he was supposed to be in an architecture class in another building with a different classroom number.  It had not occurred to him that we were not talking about architecture at all.  Given his inability to read a building map, I am not sure that I want to be in a building for which he is the architect.

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OP - PROUD of your daughter for handling that slight misstep in such a responsible, level-headed manner!!! As you can see below, I basically had a meltdown when something similar happened to me. :001_rolleyes:

 

 

I'm chuckling a little reading these stories, but this is what my nightmares consist of ... being in the wrong class, not being able to find the right class, failing my class because I couldn't find it, etc.  And I graduated college some over 30 years ago.

 

{{shiver}} THIS is why I quit college!!! Honest-to-goodness, I had a class at a community college that was partially "online" (at that time, you had to go to their computer lab, watch video lectures, and answer quizzes on their computers) and partially in person (tests, required study groups, and a few random lectures). The in-person classes were ALWAYS in a different room. So, I waltzed in for the final exam and looked around and saw zero familiar faces. Looked at the professor - and nope. Never seen him before. THEN I realize that the entire class has been sitting there for a while - I'd just walked right in in the middle of some other class.

 

To this day, I'm not sure if I was even in the right building... or if I had the wrong time... or if I just opened the door next-door to where I shoud've been... because I didn't take enough time to assess the situation.  :leaving:

 

Instead...

 

I slowly backed out of the room (as the professor is saying, "Can I help you with anything? Are you lost?") and RAN down the hallway, flew out the door, and never ever went back.  :gnorsi:

 

That was it! I knew I'd have to acknowledge that I didn't take the final if I did (I don't know what happened? I assume I was given a zero for the final? I never found out where/when my class actually met for that final exam), so I never even looked at my final transcript. Things came in the mail and I threw them away. I'd HAD a 98% in that class. Didn't finish my other final that semester either. :rolleyes:  (because that would have involved walking back onto that campus...)

 

It was a spectacular crash and burn. For a highly anxious, insecure introvert - that was about the worst thing that could've happened. lol  :svengo: I guess I could've been naked... but I'm really not sure if that would have made it worse... just... different. lol

 

Twenty years later, I still have anxiety at the memory. Getting ready to put on my big girl panties and go back and get that degree after all. And even though I've changed a lot and am no longer quite that anxious (thank the good lord I've developed quite a sense of humor about myself!!)... I AM going to have to breathe in and out a few times before I walk into the door again and psych myself up. 

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OP - PROUD of your daughter for handling that slight misstep in such a responsible, level-headed manner!!! As you can see below, I basically had a meltdown when something similar happened to me. :001_rolleyes:

 

 

 

{{shiver}} THIS is why I quit college!!! Honest-to-goodness, I had a class at a community college that was partially "online" (at that time, you had to go to their computer lab, watch video lectures, and answer quizzes on their computers) and partially in person (tests, required study groups, and a few random lectures). The in-person classes were ALWAYS in a different room. So, I waltzed in for the final exam and looked around and saw zero familiar faces. Looked at the professor - and nope. Never seen him before. THEN I realize that the entire class has been sitting there for a while - I'd just walked right in in the middle of some other class.

 

To this day, I'm not sure if I was even in the right building... or if I had the wrong time... or if I just opened the door next-door to where I shoud've been... because I didn't take enough time to assess the situation.  :leaving:

 

Instead...

 

I slowly backed out of the room (as the professor is saying, "Can I help you with anything? Are you lost?") and RAN down the hallway, flew out the door, and never ever went back.  :gnorsi:

 

That was it! I knew I'd have to acknowledge that I didn't take the final if I did (I don't know what happened? I assume I was given a zero for the final? I never found out where/when my class actually met for that final exam), so I never even looked at my final transcript. Things came in the mail and I threw them away. I'd HAD a 98% in that class. Didn't finish my other final that semester either. :rolleyes:  (because that would have involved walking back onto that campus...)

 

It was a spectacular crash and burn. For a highly anxious, insecure introvert - that was about the worst thing that could've happened. lol  :svengo: I guess I could've been naked... but I'm really not sure if that would have made it worse... just... different. lol

 

Twenty years later, I still have anxiety at the memory. Getting ready to put on my big girl panties and go back and get that degree after all. And even though I've changed a lot and am no longer quite that anxious (thank the good lord I've developed quite a sense of humor about myself!!)... I AM going to have to breathe in and out a few times before I walk into the door again and psych myself up. 

 

Oh my goodness.  What a horrible experience!  I am so glad you are returning to finish what you started!  I missed a final for a college class once.  It was a computer science class I was taking for remediation for myself at the community college because I was doing very poorly in my computer science classes at the university where I was majoring in Compuiter Science (where I felt like I was the only person who had not beaten Bill Gates in building computers in my basement.)  I had a 100% in the class.  I missed a couple of days due to illness so I must have missed something.  I went to take the final and no one was there.  There had been a mix-up in the syllabus and they had the wrong date.  The instructor corrected it at one of the classes I missed.  Since this wasn't a class that I ever intended to try to transfer (it wouldn't have at my university), I hung my head in shame but carried on.  If it had been at the university, I would have had a similar reaction to you.  I already felt like an imposter and that would have been further proof. 

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 Getting ready to put on my big girl panties and go back and get that degree after all. And even though I've changed a lot and am no longer quite that anxious (thank the good lord I've developed quite a sense of humor about myself!!)... I AM going to have to breathe in and out a few times before I walk into the door again and psych myself up. 

 

Wow!  Good for you.  It's amazing how much slack we are able to provide other people who make honest mistakes but we can be so hard on ourselves.

 

I'm loving these stories and will share the new ones with DD later tonight.  She did hear back from the instructor who reassured her that it was fine and that she would see her Wednesday. 

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I'm chuckling a little reading these stories, but this is what my nightmares consist of ... being in the wrong class, not being able to find the right class, failing my class because I couldn't find it, etc. And I graduated college some over 30 years ago.

I have these nightmares too. Most commonly I find out right at the end of a semester that there is a class I have somehow forgotten to go to all semester long and am, of course, failing.

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I have these nightmares too. Most commonly I find out right at the end of a semester that there is a class I have somehow forgotten to go to all semester long and am, of course, failing.

In mine, none of my friends in the class will share their notes with me, either.

Edited by TechWife
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For young people it is difficult to have context for their errors.  It's easy for us to appreciate how common it is to be in the wrong room at the wrong time in the wrong building, because who hasn't been there?  

 

This reminds me of when my dd was very young and sending out a group email to a bunch of people, and she forgot an important bit of information or maybe it was the attachment after she hit send.  She was mortified and in tears over her "mistake."  Gosh, how many times have I sent or received an email with an invisible attachment?  

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I'm chuckling a little reading these stories, but this is what my nightmares consist of ... being in the wrong class, not being able to find the right class, failing my class because I couldn't find it, etc.  And I graduated college some over 30 years ago.

 

My nightmares are missing the first day of middle school. Then wandering the halls the next few weeks, desperately trying to figure out which class I'm supposed to be in when and worried about all the material I am missing.  ONCE I went to the front office to help but as soon as I stepped out, all the useful information they gave me became gibberish and I was too shy to ask again.

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1) I turned up, sat down, and discovered it was the wrong class.  I *was* in the right class at the right time, but they'd changed it on the roster and not told me.  Turned out the class had been shifted to a timeslot I couldn't attend, so it was a MAD scramble to find a class that 1) still had places and 2) I was qualified to be in. 

 

2) I hurt my arm not long before the final exam day and was unable to write.  I was granted a writer.  I arrived at the assigned time in the assigned room and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  10 minutes after the exam should have started I went down to the department office to see what was going on.  They had no idea.  These exams have a 20 minute grace period, but after that you can't start.  I went back upstairs and started going along the corridor opening doors looking for my writer.  I found her 19 minutes after the exam should have started - in the room across the hall from where I'd been told to be. 

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Earlier this month I participated in a freshman orientation camp as a faculty mentor.  I was with 20 freshmen just beginning to start college and two seniors who were group leaders.  One of the exercises was for everyone to write a "fear" about starting college on an index card  The two seniors and I were supposed to remember a common fear and put on a card to be included in the stack; then they were all read anonymously to show how many of us share the same fears.  What did I put on my card???  Going to the wrong classroom.  

 

When my card was read, there were blank stares.  None of the freshman seemed to relate to it.  I really wondered if I was that odd of a student or if things had changed that much, so I am glad to hear that I am not alone.

 

Many of the answers did strike me, however, as things that would have never been voiced by freshmen (especially 18 year old males) when I was starting college.  Issues regarding mental illness, anxiety, learning disabilities, eating disorders, family dynamics, bullying, and sexual identity were common.   They made my "going to the wrong classroom" seem trivial.  I don't know if my generation was just not so accustomed to talking about those issues with total strangers or if the issues this generation faces are that much different.  

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Many of the answers did strike me, however, as things that would have never been voiced by freshmen (especially 18 year old males) when I was starting college.  Issues regarding mental illness, anxiety, learning disabilities, eating disorders, family dynamics, bullying, and sexual identity were common.   They made my "going to the wrong classroom" seem trivial.  I don't know if my generation was just not so accustomed to talking about those issues with total strangers or if the issues this generation faces are that much different.  

 

I would think the former. It would not have occurred to us back then to discuss these things with strangers; there was little public awareness, and often you did not even have words to put on things.

There was definitely bullying back then. There were certainly dysfunctional families and mental illness and eating disorders. But people were much more private about these.

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I don't know if my generation was just not so accustomed to talking about those issues with total strangers

 

I really do think this shift to more openness is a great thing.  I've noticed it time and time again with classmate discussions my DDs have shared with me.

 

Even something as trivial but personal as menstruation.  We may have discussed it in private with our female friends but it certainly wasn't shared in mixed company and I would have been horrified for a random classmate to know I was having my period.  DD20 does not have this hangup.  She will reach into her backpack and grab out a feminine pad to carry in her hand as she walks down the hall to the bathroom.  When a classmate once asked her for a feminine hygiene product and a male classmate walked up and asked what they were talking about, the first classmate turned to him and said "Tampons. We are talking about tampons."  The male was not embarrassed and was ready and willing to join in the conversation.

 

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I really do think this shift to more openness is a great thing.  I've noticed it time and time again with classmate discussions my DDs have shared with me.

 

 

I do wonder about this.  I think awareness of these issues is good.  But, I am not convinced the "talk to your 20 new best friends for the next 24 hours about this just because you were randomly put in the same small group. After tomorrow, you will probably not be with them anymore, but don't worry you will have another small group in activity XYZ to go through this exercise with..." is helping.  Although they have the vocabulary to talk about things my generation didn't talk about, I do not get the impression that they are, on average, emotionally better able to deal with the issues.  

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