Your college instructors have a whole set of standards that they’ll hold you to, but most won’t tell you what they are. Oh, they’ll tell you what they expect out of this assignment or that assignment. But they probably won’t tell you that a folded corner instead of a staple on a paper makes them think that (1) the paper will be bad and (2) the student who wrote it doesn’t give a damn. To them, it’s just OBVIOUS that papers should be turned in crisp and stapled in the upper left corner (some prefer it parallel to the top of page, but I prefer it at a 45 degree angle). They’ll tell you general expectations for classroom behavior. But they probably won’t tell you that they’ll be very offended if you wear earbuds during class. To them, it’s just OBVIOUS that you shouldn’t wear earbuds during class.
They’re not trying to be sneaky or to trick you. They really don’t realize that what’s obvious to them isn’t obvious to you. My point is that in college, just like every other part of society, there are visible expectations and there are hidden expectations. You are just expected to somehow learn the invisible expectations through trial and error. Some students do. Others don’t, but it doesn’t really cause them any problems. And then some don’t and they end up dropping out of school because it feels like they’re trying to navigate a maze with transparent walls.
I’m not saying that failure to live up to these expectations will hurt your grades (although it likely will in some cases) but rather that it will cause unnecessary friction between you and your instructors. Being aware of these expectations will, hopefully, help you avoid that friction and make your college experience a bit easier.
I’m going to try to make those invisible expectations visible. I’ve got my blind spots, too, and I’ll have to update this guide over time as expectations change or things that I was taking for granted are pointed out to me. But, in the interest of fairness, I’m going to do the best I can to clue you into the not-so obvious aspects of college culture.
- You are expected to turn in assignments in the format requested.
- So, if the assignment is supposed to be printed in 12-point Times New Roman typeface, double-spaced with one inch margins all the way around (this is the standard, by the way), then turn it in like that.
- Don’t ask if it is ok if you email it to the instructor.
- Even if they say it is ok, they don’t mean it. They think, “Seriously? How hard is it to print the thing out? Do you think you’re special or something, like the instructions don’t apply to you? Ugh.”
- If you cannot be in class the day it is due, send it in with another student or arrange to drop it off to the instructor before it is due.
- Obviously, most papers are turned in electronically via Canvas now, so these last few points might not apply.
- Speaking of formatting, don’t mess with your formatting.
- Instructors are grading dozens of papers and they will notice any shift in formatting.
- If you used one and a quarter inch margins instead of one inch, they’ll notice.
- They’ll notice 13-point font.
- They’ll notice slightly larger than double-spacing.
- They’ll notice that you put an extra line in after each paragraph.
- They’ll notice how your heading is all down the left side of the paper instead of across the top.
- They will notice EVERYTHING.
- So, best case scenario, they don’t care and just think that you think they’re an idiot.
- Worst case scenario, they’ll downgrade it or return it ungraded.
- Either way, you gain nothing.
- And, in any case, what are you trying to achieve?
- You think a three page paper will be better than a two and a half page paper just because it is a half page longer?
- That’s silly.
- Length does not make a paper good.
- Content makes a paper good.
- So, focus on content and let the length sort itself out.
- Instructors are grading dozens of papers and they will notice any shift in formatting.
- With hard copies, don’t hand in creased or crumpled assignments.
- Put your assignment in a folder to keep it safe until you turn it in.
- Also, don’t fold the corner instead of stapling it and don’t wait until you’re in class to staple it.
- Every time students ask me, “Can I use your stapler?” I think, “Why in the world would I have a stapler with me?!”
- But then I remember that in high school, your classroom was also your teacher’s office and they did have staplers.
- But that’s not how it works in college.
- In college, you have to find your own stapler, just like back in the pioneer days.
- On a related note, don’t turn your assignment in with a presentation sleeve or binder or anything like that.
- It’s no big deal, but it will have no positive effect and might have a minor negative effect, e.g., the instructor thinks you’re a kiss-up.
- And print your assignment no later than the night before it’s due.
- Every time a printer gives you trouble the day something is due, it takes six months off your life.
- Who needs that stress?
- And if you use “my printer is out of ink” to buy yourself some extra time to work on the assignment, that might work, but the instructor is still going to think ill of you because it is your responsibility to print your assignment.
- Don’t hand in the assignment late.
- Even if the instructor accepts it with no penalty, they will think ill of you.
- Follow instructions for assignments.
- Seriously.
- When you receive the assignment, read it over.
- Begin to think about how you can accomplish the assignment.
- At that point, if you have any questions, ask your instructor.
- Do not ask your instructor some question about how to do the assignment the day before it is due. (See also Due Dilligence)
- Treat assignments like you’re proud of them.
- Make sure that the assignment printed clean, e.g., that the ink didn’t run low or skip spots.
- Read the hard copy over one last time to check for typos and, if there are any, correct them and reprint.
- If you’re sending an electronic copy of a document, send it as a .pdf unless you’ve been told otherwise.
- This will preserve the formatting and avoid compatibility issues.
- Write all your papers with Google docs.
- This way it will be automatically saved and you will have access to it from everywhere.
- Then you won’t have to worry about your computer crashing.
- Seriously, this is on you.
- Speaking of computers, printers, and staplers, there are computers, printers, and staplers in the library.
- Use them if you don’t have your own.
- Here’s a big warning to start with:
- Issues concerning attire, appearance, etc. run the danger of crossing the line from the academic to the personal.
- They also run the risk of expressing entrenched racist or sexist attitudes as though they were genuine normative fact.
- So, I will proceed here with this in mind and I ask that you keep in mind that I am reporting common expectations, not my own expectations.
- What you wear has an effect not just on how you are perceived by others but also on how you are perceived by yourself.
- There is some evidence to suggest that when one dresses in a fashion that is associated with the task at hand, one tends to perform better at that task.1
- Since your task in this class is not to sleep or engage in athletic activity, wearing clothes in which you might sleep or play sports may well have a detrimental effect on your performance in the class.
- In any case, many of your instructors would appreciate it if you would show that you respect the class by taking the time to dress appropriately.
- I am not talking about business wear (though most would not be opposed to it, either).
- Rather just not athletic shorts, sweat pants, pajama pants, muscle shirts, etc.
- It’s also a good idea to not wear hats or sunglasses in class.
- Talking
- There are two kinds of talking in class: private talking and public talking.
- Private talking occurs when you are speaking to another student and don’t mean for the whole class to hear.
- Sometimes you need to speak to another student (“Connor, your fly is down”), but usually you should not engage in private talking in class.
- This is true even if you’re asking a question about class.
- No matter what you’re talking about, your instructor will probably think you’re talking about things that are irrelevant to class or, worse, that you’re making fun of their sense of style.
- Either way, they’ll not be happy about it.
- Public talking occurs when you mean for the whole class to hear.
- First, raise your hand and wait to be called on before you speak.
- Instructors must engage in classroom management.
- They need to make sure that no student is dominating the class and that students who haven’t contributed have a chance to.
- Put your hand up and wait to be called upon.
- If the instructor doesn’t call on you, that doesn’t mean they hate you.
- It was just a choice they made regarding when it is time to move on.
- Second, sometimes, and I hate to discourage students from participating, but sometimes one or two students are really insistent that the class hear their thoughts on every topic.
- Don’t be that student.
- You might think that your ideas are great, and they might be, but that doesn’t mean that everyone needs to hear all of them.
- Here’s a good standard to live by: engage in public talking only when doing so will increase your understanding.
- That is, ask questions, or propose ideas to see if you’re making some kind of mistake, but don’t propose ideas because you know you’re right and you want everyone else to know it, too. (See also this article in The Onion (Links to an external site.))
- First, raise your hand and wait to be called on before you speak.
- There are two kinds of talking in class: private talking and public talking.
- Phones
- There is probably an explicit rule on your syllabus about cell phones.
- It probably says, “Don’t use your cell phones.”
- This matches the standard expectation of college students. So, transparent, right? Not so much.
- This is so because, while your instructors say they expect you to leave your cell phones in your bag, they don’t actually think it’s going to happen. What’s more, they have just as hard a time keeping their cell phones in their bags when they’re at faculty meetings.
- The fact is, most of us are addicted to our phones.
- One of the core mechanisms of addiction is intermittent rewards.
- If a rat gets a pellet when it pushes a button, its brain releases some dopamine (aka feel good juice), which tells the rat, “do that again”.
- If the pellet is released each time the rat pushes the button, the brain stops releasing dopamine. Why reward behavior that the rat already knows will produce results?
- But if pushing the button releases a pellet only some of the time that the button is pushed, the brain will keep releasing dopamine until the rat discovers the pattern, the trick to getting a pellet.
- If there is no pattern, if it is random, then the brain just keeps releasing dopamine until the activity itself gets associated with feelin’ good and then, my friend, you’re addicted to that activity.
- Slot machines are a good example of this. It seems like there is a pattern, a trick, but there isn’t.
- Similarly, sometimes when you look at your phone there is a precious, precious message, status update, tweet, snap, or whatever awaiting you. Sometimes there isn’t. What’s the pattern? There is none, but try telling your nervous system that.
- And, if you’re being honest with yourself, you know that looking at your phone is detracting from your education.
- It is a distraction.
- It interrupts your thought process.
- It makes you shift gears.
- Sometimes it rings, and now everyone knows that you have a stupid ringtone.
- So, you know that you should leave your phone in airplane mode in your bag or pocket or, better yet, at home (yeah, right).
- So, here’s the deal: instructors tell you not to use your cell phones, but they know you will and they know that they will, too.
- But that doesn’t stop them from thinking ill of you when they see you using it.
- And they see you using it.
- Do with this information what you will, I guess. I leave my phone in my office.
- Asking Questions
- Instructors expect you to ask questions when you aren’t sure that you understand something.
- This isn’t great, since knowing whether or not you understand something is actually a pretty difficult skill to master.
- It would be better for instructors to find ways to assess for themselves whether or not you understand something.
- And many do in various ways, e.g., quizzes.
- But it is likely that your college instructors will conduct fewer informal assessments of your understanding than your high school teachers did.
- You are expected to make up the difference by asking yourself, “Do I get what’s going on?”
- Attentiveness
- Your instructors expect you to stay awake.
- Many people are quite offended when students fall asleep in class.
- Maybe it’s their fault for being boring.
- Maybe it’s your fault for staying up late doing who knows what.
- Maybe it’s nobody’s fault: you’re working two part-time jobs to pay your way through school and you’re exhausted.
- Whatever the cause, this expectation remains.
- So, try to get enough sleep.
- Don’t take classes at times you know won’t work for you, e.g., 8 am or right after lunch.
- But also try to get engaged with the material.
- If you’re actively struggling to understand what’s going on, you are more likely to stay awake.
- Miscellaneous Classroom Expectations
- Don’t eat obnoxious food in class.
- Food that makes a lot of noise, e.g., chips in crinkly bags, or that has a strong odor, e.g., anything hot, makes itself known.
- It intrudes into the learning environment of other students.
- Don’t wear earbuds or headphones in class, even if they’re not on and you can hear what’s happening perfectly.
- The instructor doesn’t know that they’re not on and will likely think that you are intentionally ignoring what’s going on in class.
- Don’t be late to class.
- There is probably a tardy policy in your syllabus, but it is worth repeating that instructors expect that you won’t be late to class.
- In fact, it’s probably a good idea to be five minutes early.
- Note that “I couldn’t find a parking space” is not a valid excuse for being late.
- Parking is an issue on campus.
- Figure out how long it takes you to get to class from the closest place you know that you’ll be able to park, e.g., Cedar st., then leave home with enough time to park there, walk to class, and still be five minutes early.
- Attendance
- Your classes all probably have attendance policies, but even if there is no penalty for missing class, don’t miss class.
- There’s a whole bunch of reasons for this, but the one most relevant here is that your instructors expect you to attend class.
- If you don’t, they will notice and it will cause friction.
- Departure
- Have you ever noticed that about five minutes before the end of class, the room starts getting really noisy?
- Papers are shuffled, books closed, backpacks opened, etc.
- I was a student and I understand that there is a mysterious urge to get ready to leave class like a sprinter from the starting line.
- Fight that urge.
- Don’t pack up your class materials until your instructor dismisses you from class.
- No one will probably notice if you are among the 90% of students getting all fidgety before class is over, but there is a decent chance that your instructor will notice if you aren’t, and that will make you look good.
- Don’t eat obnoxious food in class.
- How to communicate
- This one is particularly tricky because you have fresh, new instructors who might want you to text them questions (because, you know, they’re hip and fresh and down with youth culture) and you might have cranky older instructors who refuse to learn how to send emails (presumably, you should use carrier pigeons or send telegrams).
- But the standard way of communicating with instructors, apart from face to face communication, is Canvas messages or emails.
- However, there are standards for how these emails are written.
- Basically, you should write emails (and Canvas messages) like you were writing a formal letter.
- Your email should contain all the following components:
- Subject Line
- If the email is class related, the subject line should include the course number, section number, and topic of the email.
- Note that any message sent through Canvas will automatically include the course and section numbers in the subject.
- If it is not class related it, just include the topic of the email.
- For example, “PHL 250 Sec. 1: Final Paper Topic” or “Letter of Recommendation”.
- Salutation
- Begin your email by addressing the recipient.
- Use whatever name is appropriate (see Names above).
- For example, “Dr. So-and-so,”.
- You can begin with “Dear”, but I steer away from it, mostly because I am a misanthrope and most people are not dear to me.
- DO NOT begin with “Hey”. Just don’t do it. It’s better to have no salutation.
- Body
- Begin the body of the email below the salutation.
- Be sure to use correct spelling, punctuation, complete sentences, upper and lowercase letters, etc.
- This is not an informal piece of writing, like a text message or an email to friends of family.
- It is a formal piece of writing and should conform to the standards of formal writing (see Writing below).
- Subscription and Signature
- Below the body of the letter include a subscription and a signature.
- I usually use “Best,” for the subscription and below that use one of the following: “Dr. Loughrist”, “Tim Loughrist”, or “Tim”.
- Each one is appropriate for different situations.
- When communicating with instructors, I’d use “<First Name><Last Name>”.
- The subscription is falling out of style, so no one will care if you don’t include it.
- Subject Line
- Note that you should follow your instructor’s lead. Start formal, and if they respond without a salutation then you are free to do the same in further emails in the same thread.
- There is a difference between reply and reply all.
- If you reply to an email, it will only be sent to the person who sent the email.
- If you reply all to an email, it will go to everyone that the original was sent to.
- It’s kind of rude to reply all when you are just addressing the sender. You clog up everyone’s inbox. It also makes you look like an oblivious chump.
- The To: line is for those people who the email is addressed to.
- The CC: line is for those people who you want to keep in the loop but to whom the email is not really addressed.
- The BCC: line is for those people you want to keep in the loop when you don’t want the email’s recipients to know that you are keeping that person in the loop.
- It is generally a good idea to write emails to instructors between 9am and 5pm.
- Expect a response by the end of the next day that class is in session.
- Don’t be surprised if you don’t get a response to an email sent Friday evening until Monday afternoon.
- Don’t send a follow-up email, e.g., “Just checking to make sure you received my email regarding the term paper topic”, until several days have elapsed.
- So, don’t send a follow-up to a Friday evening email until Wednesday of the next week.
- Your instructor’s email address should be on the syllabus.
- Your instructor’s office phone number should also be on the syllabus, but it is really rare for students to call instructors. It’s not rude or wrong, but it is…weird.
- But, first and foremost, try to contact your instructors in person.
- Go to their office hours (see Office Hours below) or stay after class.
- What to communicate
- Whether you need to let your instructor know that you will miss class varies from class to class.
- If you aren’t sure, err on the side of caution and let your instructor know if you’re going to miss class.
- Inform them of this as soon as you know; don’t wait until ten minutes before class.
- If you’re having trouble getting the textbook for the class, let the instructor know that.
- Instructors expect you to try to solve issues on your own before you come to them.
- We can call this “doing your due diligence”.
- In general, and this goes for your working life as well as your academic life, don’t ask questions that you could easily answer for yourself.
- For things relating to the course, check your syllabus (for the love of all that is good in the world, CHECK YOUR SYLLABUS!), Canvas, and assignment sheets before asking the instructor.
- For technology questions, do a quick web search before contacting your instructor (use discretion here; some tech questions might be better asked of tech support than the instructor).
- If you missed class, try to figure out what you missed by:
- First, looking at the schedule of topics
- Second, looking at the assigned readings, and…
- Third, talking to other students in the class.
- If ALL of those fail, then you should meet with your instructor to discuss the material you missed.
- Make sure that you are caught up on the class readings and assignments before doing this.
- DON’T email your instructor asking what you missed.
- This can be perceived as you asking your instructor to just send you their notes or boil down the whole class to a few words.
- It implies that there really wasn’t much in class to miss in the first place.
- And NEVER ask “did I miss anything?”
- This also goes for your grades.
- If you want to know what your grade is in the class and your instructor hasn’t put it up on Canvas, look at the scores you’ve received on your assignments.
- What’s that? You threw out your old assignments?
- DON’T throw out your old assignments, at least not until you have a final grade in the class and you know that you don’t want to contest it.
- You’ll need those assignments if you want to contest the grade.
- So, you’ve got your old assignments. Now look to see how much they are weighted.
- If the class is graded out of 100 points and each assignment is worth 10 points, then you can just add up the points you’ve received and divide them by the total available points.
- That’s your current grade as a percentage.
- Check that against the grading scale for the class.
- But instructors can set up the grading in a lot of different ways, and I can’t tell you how to calculate it for every one of those.
- So, you’re going to have to try to figure it out yourself or talk to a mathematically inclined friend.
- At the end of the day, if you can’t figure it out and you need to know, ask your instructor in person, preferably during office hours.
- It’s also worth asking them at that point how you would go about calculating your grade.
- Your instructors’ office hours are given on their syllabi.
- Those are their OPEN office hours, which means that you don’t need an appointment to come in.
- Outside of their open office hours, it is generally expected that you will arrange to meet with the instructor rather than just drop in.
- Though this may change as you develop a relationship with your instructors.
- Office hours are incredibly useful and ridiculously under-utilized.
- They are an opportunity for you to ask questions of your instructor one-on-one, to deepen and broaden your understanding of the course material, and to get an expert’s thoughts on your ideas.
- Don’t be shy about office hours.
- Students who have received special preparation for college know that they should use office hours and they do.
- Also, it is really hard not to think well of a student who has been diligent about coming to office hours to make sure they understand what’s going on in class.
- Although instructors try to avoid this, that good will sometimes has a positive impact on your grade.
- We’re only human, after all.
- Syllabus (sill-ah-bus):
- A document that provides basic information about your class, such as the course content, assessment method, schedule, instructor’s contact information, and class policies.
- The syllabus will be provided by the instructor at the beginning of the course, either as a hard copy or on Canvas.
- You are expected to know the information in the syllabus.
- This means that if the syllabus indicates that an assignment is due on a particular day, then you cannot be excused from having the assignment completed because you didn’t know about it.
- I recommend that you get a hard copy of the syllabus for each class and keep it with your other materials for that class. Also, gather all your syllabi (sill-a-bye, plural of “syllabus”) at the beginning of the semester and copy all assignments, readings, and important dates from the syllabi into your planner.
See also: Due Diligence
- Titles
- Faculty members, i.e., all those at the college who teach classes, can have a whole range of titles. There are:
- Instructors
- Professors of practice
- Adjunct instructors
- Associate professors
- Assistant professors
- Visiting assistant professors
- Full professors
- Emeritus professors
- And the list goes on…
- Luckily, you don’t need to know any of that.
- Generally, no one will care if you refer to them as your professor or instructor.
- Some people might care if you refer to them as your teacher.
- So, to be safe, refer to faculty members as professors or instructors.
- Faculty members, i.e., all those at the college who teach classes, can have a whole range of titles. There are:
- Names
- If someone has a Ph.D. (doctorate in philosophy, though “philosophy” here just means some academic area), an M.D. (doctorate in medicine), or an E.D. (doctorate in education), then the appropriate title for them is Dr. (doctor).
- Unless they tell you otherwise, call your instructors Dr. <last name>.
- Even if it turns out they don’t have a doctorate, they won’t be upset if you assume that they do.
- It is worth explaining why this matters.
- People with doctorates worked pretty hard to get them.
- Calling them Mr. or Ms. So-and-so can feel to them like you are disrespecting them and the hard work they did.
- You’re probably not trying to do that, but that’s how it can feel anyway.
- Maybe that’s silly, but it’s still true.
- In some cases, there are real power issues at play.
- For example, female instructors are much less likely to be called Dr. than male instructors are.
- Given that female instructors face explicit and implicit challenges to their authority all throughout the academic system, this slight can be a real slap in the face.
- There are readings assigned for most class meetings.
- You are expected to have completed the reading prior to class.
- Completing the reading does not mean just having read each word.
- It means that you have given the readings careful thought, that you have tried to understand the readings, that you have looked up the meanings of unfamiliar words in the readings.
- Completing the reading for a college class is hard work.
- It requires you to THINK HARD.
- It can be very frustrating and it can be exhausting.
- Still, you are expected to have completed the readings because your understanding, and misunderstanding, of the readings is the basis for classroom learning.
- An instructor standing at the front of the room regurgitating the lessons that they took away from the readings is virtually useless to the students.
- Learning occurs when students construct meaning for themselves.
- Instructors cannot pour understanding into you.
- They can only facilitate your own acquisition of understanding.
- And that means you will have to do the hard work of trying to make sense of things.
- That being said, you should not be expected to know how to complete the readings in the sense that I have laid down above.
- It is very possible that you’ve never been asked to do this sort of thing before.
- So, hopefully, your instructor will tell you how to complete the readings.
See also: How to Read Philosophy
- You should expect the following ratios of outside-the-classroom study time to in-the-classroom time:
- A — 3:1
- B — 2:1
- C — 1:1
- D — 0:1
- F — 0:0 (i.e., don’t go to class)
- If you want an A in the class, you should expect to have a three-to-one ratio of outside-the-classroom study time to in-the-classroom time.
- If this class meets for two and a half hours a week, you should expect to, and your instructor will expect you to, put in seven and a half hours on this course outside of the classroom.
- I recognize that this is a significant time commitment.
- If you’re taking four or more classes and all have the same time ratio expectations, then you’re expected to devote 40+ hours a week to your academics.
- This is consistent with your status as a professional student.
- That being said, I also recognize that many college students do not have the luxury of spending that much time on their course-work.
- If you are struggling to find the time to get your work done, talk to your instructor.
- They may be able to help you find ways to meet your academic goals without sacrificing private or professional responsibilities.
- Writing is hard.
- Not the physical act, although that was hard enough when first you learned it, but rather the act of putting thoughts onto the page in a way that accurately represents you meaning and clearly expresses it to the reader.
- It takes a lot of time.
- It takes many drafts.
- And all that is assuming that you’ve already got an idea of what you’re writing about.
- So, writing is hard.
- But that’s a good thing.
- Growth comes from hard work; lifting three pound weights will never make you a bodybuilder.
- Intellectual growth comes from hard thinking.
- So, instructors have you write.
- Instructors expect you to be willing to put in the hard work necessary to write a good paper and they often expect you to know HOW to put in that work.
- They shouldn’t. That’s unfair. But they often do.
- And I won’t lie to you. Writing comes much easier for some students than for others.
- Likely, this is due to having more experience with it, either in their free time or during their previous education.
- For some of you, writing will mean not just figuring out how to express your thoughts clearly, but also in how to express them in language that meets the standards for formal college writing.
- Using appropriate spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and structure will be difficult for some of you because it will be unfamiliar to some of you.
- However, there are people to help you.
- First, there are your peers. Ask a friend who you think is pretty good at college writing to read over your work and make suggestions.
- Second, there is the writing center. Make an appointment to have someone at the writing center read over your work and make suggestions.
- Using these resources does mean that you will have to complete drafts of your assignments sooner than you otherwise would be required.
- Part of being a responsible college student is budgeting your time in such a way that you can use those resources that are available to you.
- Get a dictionary.
- You’ll need it to make sure that you’re spelling and using words corrects.
- You’ll also need it to help you complete readings.
- Pay Attention to the Rubric
- A rubric is a table indicating what should be in an assignment and how much each component is worth.
- Look for the column that corresponds with the highest grade.
- Then use that column as both a plan of attack and a checklist after you finish.
- Don’t use text abbreviations, e.g., “u” instead of “you”.
- Don’t use slang or colloquial terminology.
- Don’t swear.
- The list goes on.
1Adam, Hajo and Adam D. Galinsky. 2012. “Enclothed Cognition.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 30: 1–8.