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NWR School trouble... I honestly feel like crying my eyes out and I don't know what to do!

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Re: NWR School trouble... I honestly feel like crying my eyes out and I don't know what to do!

  • ViczaesarViczaesar member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    Have you actually talked to the professor yet, or gone to the TA's office hours?  That's your first order of business.  The TA doesn't owe you more readings of your paper, but if you have specific questions the place to ask them is in office hours.  That's why they're there.

    Forget what the first TA told you.  It's not relevant anymore, as he won't be grading your work.  Try to follow the directions and feedback of your current TA. 



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  • hearthemelodyhearthemelody
    First Comment
    Oh I didn't realize it was SPSS!

    Perhaps I can help. I just finished my degree in Sociology, and that is the program we used.

    It sure can be a pain though!
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  • andra loves andreandra loves andre
    First Comment
    In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_nwr-school-trouble-i-honestly-feel-like-crying-my-eyes-out-and-i-dont-know-what-to-do?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:fd0104b4-c3be-4870-b25e-9f7cda5e478dPost:0dd2cd37-c664-4daf-85f2-b76ccbe45b24">Re: NWR School trouble... I honestly feel like crying my eyes out and I don't know what to do!</a>:
    [QUOTE]I am glad your professor offered to help you and change your TA.  It seems to be water under the bridge at this point, but I really wanted to echo what Stephbean had said. I think you could have done more to work with the TA, even though you clearly didn't see eye to eye on things.  And while I get that you have "proven her wrong" many times and your citations were legit, have you thought about how you approached her?  Showing her that she is "flat-out wrong" and that you are completely right can be kind of insulting, depending on the context. Right, wrong or indifferent, I'm also not surprised she has kind of become annoyed with you if you are arguing over 1-2% points.  Yes, they add up.  But in her mind, if you understood the assignment n the first place, you wouldn't need all those small points. The truth is, TAs have lives.  And while you are paying big bucks for your education, its college and most professors expect you to find your own way and solve your own problems - a TA isn't and shouldn't be a proof-reader or editor.  Maybe your university is different than mine.  But our TAs, while generally exceptional and very knowledgeable, all had independent research they were working on - especially an MD-PhD.  So she's NOT going to respond to your emails if you keep asking her every.little.thing - she has plenty of other responsibilities and an undergrad lecture isn't the top of the list.   Office hours are the time they are dedicated to class, that is when you will have the greatest chance of getting a response.  And again, she isn't there to edit your paper.  She did you a favor by being so thorough the first time, even if it was so far ahead of time.  Yes she said she would do it, but I think you are asking for a level of help that is almost unfair. You shouldn't get a "free chance" at an assignment and a full-fledged grade even if it IS done early.   You should get help on ideas, grading strategy, expectations. Ask specific questions if you are unsure about  style - does this point work, does the flow seem unnatural, ect.  And show a genuine interest in more than just your grade.  I know you probably don't mean to, but you come off as kind of whiny here.  I imagine you are someone who generally is successful and works hard and have never come across a road block like this before.  Learn from it.  Complaining to the Professor will help to a degree, but I'd be shocked if the TAs didnt talk and your bad one didn't tell your new TA about her trials with you.   Just take a deep breath and keep working on it.  You're going to be fine.
    Posted by cbvcru67[/QUOTE]

    <div>The thing is, I didn't approach her about her mistakes in a mean way, I did try hard to be nice and professional about it. I even told her "that's ok, it's unlikely to know everything in the huge APA manual, and I don't mind as long as long as what we discuss gets fixed", and she said she wouldn't change my mark (which I thought was unfair) but she did say that she'll help me with proofreading my assignment since the prof had asked the TAs to do that.</div><div>
    </div><div>The prof told us at the very beginning of the class that we were to stay in contact with the TAs by emailing updates and questions at least every week (I emailed once every 1-2 weeks because she was very slow at responding and I didn't want to bomb her with emails), so that's still less than the prof wanted. And when I told the prof what was going on, he said that other students had complained that she's slow and not reading their papers like he had asked the TAs to, so he also seemed pretty peeved at that.</div><div>
    </div><div>I would understand getting treated this way if I did something that was wrong according to the APA guidelines or the assignment requirements, but I didn't. Even the prof told me that I probably bruised her ego by proving her wrong, but that he would have done the same thing.</div><div>
    </div><div>I think the way you had TAs and we have TAs might be a bit different. In some of my courses, they don't look through your work, they tell us to just send them "chunks" of it at a time. But in the rest of the classes (I'd say about 40%), like this one, some profs do look through work and even assign "hypothetical grades" before the assignment is due. So if you hand in a piece of work early enough, they'll correct it and tell you "if nothing changes, you'd get a B", and they expect you to make the changes. Actually, part of our mark is even "the student's ability to take the comments from previous drafts and change them, or explain why they did not", and we're supposed to include letters of revisions for every draft.</div><div>
    </div><div>I think this course is supposed to be more hands-on since we're supposed to be very in touch with the TA, hand in multiple copies of work, letters of revisions, etc. I'll fully admit that it's a crapload of work for the student, I can't even imagine what it's like for a TA that deals with 15 students (the prof told us they only have us as students, no other courses to TA for). But those are the prof's demands, and I think that if we're expected to keep up as students, then TAs should do the same, or at least discuss with the prof if they thing it's unrealistic and too big of a workload, because in the end it really punishes the students if we don't make our grades (and there seems to be quite a handful in the same situation as me) because the TAs are overworked due to the prof's hefty demands.</div><div>
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  • andra loves andreandra loves andre
    First Comment
    In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_nwr-school-trouble-i-honestly-feel-like-crying-my-eyes-out-and-i-dont-know-what-to-do?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:fd0104b4-c3be-4870-b25e-9f7cda5e478dPost:e5ed0a9f-285a-49d3-b177-405ab1a2578c">Re: NWR School trouble... I honestly feel like crying my eyes out and I don't know what to do!</a>:
    [QUOTE]Oh I didn't realize it was SPSS! Perhaps I can help. I just finished my degree in Sociology, and that is the program we used. It sure can be a pain though!
    Posted by hearthemelody[/QUOTE]

    <div>We only had 4 hours of SPSS tutoring and we're supposed to go at it ourselves (with the TAs if we need help), which kind of makes me nervous!</div><div>
    </div><div>Yesterday the prof told me I need to compute a "Multi-Variate MANova", which I hadn't even heard of in any of my stats courses or research methods courses. I've been googling it all day lol! He also told me that I need to use a function where the program coputes patterns in my responses so that for people that didn't answer a question or two SPSS could "predict" their answer and fill it in. Even the prof said that the wasn't sure how to do that, and to ask the new TA he assigned me to.</div><div>
    </div><div>That's the thing, we're being told to do a lot of things the prof knows we weren't taught, and he's relying on the TAs, who are probably overworked, and it's ending up screwing over the students that are stuck in the middle. The new TA seems a lot friendlier though, and so far, no student has complained about her. She's supposedly a SPSS whizz, so hopefully it all ends well. There's only 4 weeks left to this course... that's what I keep thinking to myself.</div>
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