What Your Professors Really Want

 Your professors really want for you to learn. Whether they want to or not, they must measure that learning by assigning grades.

 Your professors really want

             for you to attend class regularly.

             for you to participate in class discussions.

             for you to work independently, sometimes going beyond the assigned reading to find out new information on your own.

             for you to recognize that your real life is not on hold while you complete college. College is part of your real life, the foundation for much of the rest of it.

             for you to make connections among the course materials in their classes and your other classes.

             for you to take their course and your education seriously.

             for you to have academic and personal integrity.

             for you to connect course materials to the “real world.”

             for you to succeed.

for you to be excited not only about course material but also about the possibilities for your lives.

 
On the other hand, there are things that your professors do not want. They do not want

             for you to rely exclusively, or even primarily, on the Internet for research and assignments. Internet sources are notoriously unreliable, shallow, and even misleading.

             for you to fail. Your professors will do everything they can to help you to keep  from earning a failing grade. Ultimately, however, it is up to you to earn a grade.

            for you to give up. Very rarely is dropping a class a student’s only option. If you have attended the class and kept up with the readings and the assignments, your professors will work very hard with you so that you can pass the class rather than    abandon it. Always talk with your professors before dropping a class.