Since my first day of classes here at SXU, we were introduced to Canvas, the online “grade book” that professors use to post grades, assignments, and files. Since my time here at SXU, I have used canvas for many things, including contacting my professors or peers, creating group pages to interact, and downloading documents posted by my professors.
However, since my first semester, even though it was enforced for professors to use, less than half of my professors actually do. I find this to be very frustrating for multiple reasons. For starters, I attend a private university with a ridiculously high tuition; I do not pay such a big price tag to come to this school only to have professors not take advantage of Canvas.
I want to know my grades. I want to know where I am at in classes. I want to know if I should seek help or pat myself on the back for my hard work. I cannot explain the amount of anger and frustration I feel when it is a week away from finals week and I have no idea where I am in the course. I honestly think this is unfair and a failure on the professors part.
I understand that your life is busy, so is mine, but I do think I deserve to get an update on how I am developing over the semester in the class. I think one of my biggest pet peeves is when the professor starts off posting grades in a good amount of time in the start of the semester and I start to think we are getting off at a good start.
10 weeks later, I have the same grades from the first couple weeks and all the most recent grades wont get posted until finals week. Wow does that frustrate me; I just want to scream because, if anything, all it does is add stress to my already stressful finals week.
I remember last spring semester I only had one grade for a paper, an A, going into finals week for one of my classes. The day of the final we had a take home quiz and another paper due that day.
After the final grades were put in the week following final exams, my grade was at a B. My blood was boiling. I even went as far as e-mailing the professor afterwards to ask to see all my final scores on everything that we turned in the day of the final and never got a response.
I just cannot wrap my head around it. How do professors think this is okay? How does the school allow oversights like these to occur? I think that for the amount of money we pay to go to this university, we at least deserve to know our grades.
Do not get me wrong, I have had some professors that are very good about posting grades in a timely manner and giving feedback when they can. Am I alone here? Am I the only person who has this issue? I honestly think I am going to go crazy if this continuous. As a Biology/Pre-Health major, my schedule and classes are stressful enough.
I do not need the added stress of worrying and wondering how I am doing in a course. I love SXU; I think, overall, my experience has been amazing. However, I do think, as a university, it is their job to ensure that the students are receiving a proper education with the knowledge of where they stand in their classes at all time. This is one place where I find things lacking.
Hopefully this gets fixed, or at least enforced. I would love to know my progress in a course for every class throughout the semester. I think, as students, we at least deserve that.
Susy Macias
Senior Viewpoints Editor