Fave you ever failed a post secondary course?

[Demo24]

Technically 2. Botany(professor gave us some weird tests, also leaving after that semester so I don't think he cared much), and pre-cal(she gave us significantly harder tests than I prepared for, plus understanding the material in class and in the book I thought I was good, especially after taking calculus in high school.). I retook precal with a significantly better professor and did well, never bothered to retake botany as I changed majors. I should have dropped botany, certainly hurt my GPA later, but oh well.

First two years of college kinda sucked trying to fit in biology, English, history, chemistry, and math classes. Taking Bio and chemistry at the same time was particularly annoying.

 

[shortylickens]

Thought I was failing Spanish so I switched to audit.
End of the semester my teacher said I probably would have passed.

Made me mad.

 

[mmntech]

Yes, I failed a first year calc course. I wanted to do commerce and it was one of the required program prerequisites. No idea why. I ended up walking away with a painful 49%. I've never been good at complex math. I'm glad I did fail because it taught me two valuable lessons. University is useless you're taking a science degree. Secondly, I discovered I didn't want to be in business. It may pay well but being in a cube farm all day would drive me insane.

I went to to political science instead, them journalism as a post grad. Now I've gotten a job at a tv station.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Never.

 

[TecHNooB]

When I was in engineering, I had to take a philosophy course. Prof was annoying. The typical philosophers were discussed in the class; somewhat interesting. But, he had this habit of "just because you can see this desk, does it really mean it's here? Just because you can hear me tapping the desk, does it mean it's here?" It's not a desk, it's a table, you moron.

But, I was willing to play the game, up to a point. At that university, they had a really big art program. Art students spent half their time stoned out of their minds - well, perhaps it wasn't the effects of drugs - that was just the way they were most of the time. To this day, I recall what earned an F for me quite well. We were looking at modern art - something that I can't stand - and discussing the artists' deep meaning behind the art. One of the paintings had a bunch of concentric squares. The innermost square was yellow, then red, then blue, then white, then red. One by one, he asked students what they thought the deep meaning was behind that design. "Wowwwww, mannnn, this is realllly speaking to me about emotions. I think the yellow at the center is cowardice, but like, he's really trying to fight that cowardice and the red shows his anger at himself. And after anger, cancer victims usually feel sadness, that's like the next emotion. But then, there's that period where you're not emotional and just like kinda accept it, that's the white. But then, there's the red. The red is the hope."
"Wow, excellent. How about you John?"
"I think it's a political statement. Like the center is China and surrounding that is the Red of communist Russia, because Russia is superior to China. But, surrounding both of those is the Red White and Blue of the United States because we're the most powerful nation."
"Wow, excellent. How about you, DrPizza"
"Maybe the artist was just doodling? Maybe the deepest meaning is simply that the artist was bored. <holds notebook up for professor to see> See, I'm doodling, and my designs are better than a bunch of concentric squares colored with primary colors. The only meaning to my doodles is that this is really boring."

Wrong answer, especially in a course where the professor could give you any grade he felt like, since it wasn't based on tests with questions where an answer would be clearly correct or incorrect.

Yea.. when taking art classes, you really have to hold back what you want to say and just say what the professor wants. Or don't say anything at all. Not once have I ever had an art professor/teacher who was actually good at the technical aspects of art. I learned my lesson in highschool and took an art course in college as pass/fail. Takes the randomness out of the grade

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Dr. Pizza's story is exactly why I avoided classes like that. I could never take a class like that seriously and I still had some dignity left which would prevent me from BSing answers to fluff exercises like his example.

 

[MarkXIX]

I had to drop two summer classes because I was busy training at Fort Irwin (NTC) for 29 days. You're welcome!

 

[SearchMaster]

I never failed a class but almost had to retake one. It was a required course so I had to get a C- or better (we had a stupid +/i system). Out of the ~30 students in the class, there was 1 A, 1 B, 2 C-'s, and the rest had to retake the course. I ended up with one of the C-'s, the best/worst grade of my college career. I personally knew three people who had to cancel graduation plans because they had to stay an extra semester to make up the class, I'm sure there were at least a dozen more in that situation.

 

[gorcorps]

No, but I was | | this close from doing so during Sophomore chemistry. One of the worst things about high school was that it was so stupidly simple that anybody remotely smart never had to study. Then when I got to a real school I had no idea how to study. The first two years were awful. I had to work my ass off to claw my way back to a 3.0.

Grad school was pretty easy though.

 

[Stuxnet]

College whipped my ass into shape (mostly because I was paying for it). Graduated high school with a B average. Graduated college (mathematics) Summa Cum Laude.

Moral of the story? Make kids pay for their high school education.

 

[terry107]

Never failed any classes, but then again I graduated with accounting and finance degrees, so they weren't the hardest classes in the world.

 

[nageov3t]

no, but I got a "Senior's C" once... aka: I was probably supposed to have failed, but the prof gave everyone in the class the bare minimum grade they needed to get credit for the course and not have to repeat it.

Intro to Health. the class was kinda crazy... the prof would do nothing in class all day but shoot the shit and talk about sports, but then our tests would be on insanely technical stuff that was never covered in class.

 

[Saint Nick]

Absolutely not. I did poorly my first semester, but that showed me what I was doing wrong. Remaining semesters were As and Bs with a couple Cs thrown in there. Graduated with a 3.2

My parents paid for my education so there was no screwing that up.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Passed the midterm and final
0 on the internals - unable to take the tests and the prof would not let me take them early or later.

Failed the course.

Department head would not overrule the instructor.
took the class the following semester with a different instructor who understood my situation.
Cleared course with a posthumous B - did not even take the final. As on the internals and mid Term.

 

[Deeko]

Yes, I failed Prob/Stat 1, but it wasn't because I couldn't do the material - the professor gave me a 0 in the midterm because I was at nationals for a sport. He knew I was going ahead of time. He didn't care. Oh well.

 

[DrPizza]

My favorite way of passing a class - CAD class, around 1985 or 1986. They just built a state of the art lab for CAD during the summer. Since it was on a computer, they chose the one person in the engineering department who had significant computer experience to teach the course. He had never used CAD in his life. The software wasn't installed until the weekend before the first class, so he never even had a chance to learn to use it before attempting to teach a class. The third class went something like this. "Has anyone figured out anything new this week?" "I figured out how to make a circle where I want it." "Really? How? I've had trouble figuring out how that feature worked."

I had a big project to do for the final, and had barely started it. I went down to the lab on the last day to do the final and saw that the grades had already been posted. "Oh shit, I didn't get my final done and he already turned in the grades." S "S??! OMG! I forgot! I took this pass/fail! Woohoooooooo!"

 

[Red Storm]

I failed a class once. Got a call from my parents while in class right about to take the final. My little sister was going through heart failure hours before her scheduled kidney transplant. I asked the instructor if I could retake the exam, he said "No", I said "Fuck that" and left.

 

[FoBoT]

calculus, i just don't get it
i withdrew from the class twice when it was obvious i was going to fail, the third try i stayed in and got an F. gave up after that

 

[DrPizza]

calculus, i just don't get it
i withdrew from the class twice when it was obvious i was going to fail, the third try i stayed in and got an F. gave up after that

Probably your teacher's fault if you "just don't get it." Watch the first 10 minutes of calculus in 20 minutes (youtube) - that's the nuts and bolts of what you need to understand.

 

[AstroManLuca]

I failed Calc 2 once. I actually studied and everything but at some point it became clear I would never be able to understand the stuff they were talking about so I stopped going. The funny thing is, my first semester of college, I went to Calc 2 for a week and then switched to Calc 1 when I figured I was in over my head. Aced Calc 1 despite barely studying; it was all review of stuff I had learned in high school. When I took Calc 2 again, it was just as incomprehensible to me as the first time I tried. They need a Calc 1.5 or something.

Also got a D in organic chemistry. Again, studied, and even got tutoring from a high school friend of mine who was in the same class as me, but it didn't help at all. After that, I switched majors because clearly I wasn't cut out for the sciences.

I withdrew from a class once later on as well.

 

[Stuxnet]

Probably your teacher's fault if you "just don't get it." Watch the first 10 minutes of calculus in 20 minutes (youtube) - that's the nuts and bolts of what you need to understand.

Most teachers/instructors just regurgitate formulas. Students are rarely presented with why the formulas work and what the many benefits of calculus are. In some cases they're shown why the formulas work, but it's done via daunting proofs that they aren't remotely equipped to understand.

I actually had a little bit of difficulty in Calculus II, but was lucky that I was fascinated by what I was learning. It didn't take much for a few things to click thanks to my curiosity (and stubbornness). If I hadn't been really fascinated by the fact that a human being can rotate a curve, calculate its surface area and volume, etc., all with a pen and pencil, it would have been much more difficult.

 

[Jeff7]

When I was in engineering, I had to take a philosophy course. Prof was annoying. The typical philosophers were discussed in the class; somewhat interesting. But, he had this habit of "just because you can see this desk, does it really mean it's here? Just because you can hear me tapping the desk, does it mean it's here?" It's not a desk, it's a table, you moron.

My philosophy classes were at least interesting.
That whole "do things exist if you're not perceiving them?" thing came up.
One student got up and walked out of the classroom, then came back in.
"Was everyone still here the whole time I was gone?" Though he wasn't doing it as a smartass thing, he was just arguing his point.
That of course was the class with a Jesus freak student. Everything was Jesus-related in some way. Jesus apparently wasn't much good at debates. She dropped the class after a week or two.

"Wow, excellent. How about you, DrPizza"
"Maybe the artist was just doodling? Maybe the deepest meaning is simply that the artist was bored. <holds notebook up for professor to see> See, I'm doodling, and my designs are better than a bunch of concentric squares colored with primary colors. The only meaning to my doodles is that this is really boring."

Wrong answer, especially in a course where the professor could give you any grade he felt like, since it wasn't based on tests with questions where an answer would be clearly correct or incorrect.

:awe:
Yes...a lot of my appreciation of art is dependent on how well the creation resembles something real, or of how much real skill went into it.
The social sciences hall at Penn State had some of those "paintings" which looked like someone left the lid off while using a paint mixer.
Okay. Fine. Hang it on your wall, it's colorful. But the meaning behind it? Hang on, I'm going to post the raw data of an encrypted text file. See if you can pull meaning out of it. (Fun tip: Maybe there isn't any. )

Or maybe the artist was thinking, "People are actually paying loads of money for pictures of colored squares. Oh god I love my job."

Oh, and my thoughts on Shakespeare: He wrote plays so he could afford to pay rent, and buy food.

 

[Jeff7]

Most teachers/instructors just regurgitate formulas. Students are rarely presented with why the formulas work and what the many benefits of calculus are. In some cases they're shown why the formulas work, but it's done via daunting proofs that they aren't remotely equipped to understand.

I actually had a little bit of difficulty in Calculus II, but was lucky that I was fascinated by what I was learning. It didn't take much for a few things to click thanks to my curiosity (and stubbornness). If I hadn't been really fascinated by the fact that a human being can rotate a curve, calculate its surface area and volume, etc., all with a pen and pencil, it would have been much more difficult.

That was a big deal for me.
Yay, I can determine the volume of a curve rotated about an axis, bounded by zero and infinity on the ends.
I can also make squeaky farting noises by rubbing the side of my jaw against the skin over my clavicle.
Awesome.

 

[Imp]

Almost failed two, ONLY failed one:

- One I missed the final exam because I copied the wrong 'linear algebra' course onto my schedule.

- The other I just never figured out what the hell they wanted (essay question tests), and just wrote bullshit that got me <30% twice. Final mark was 35%.

I also almost failed a Dynamics course and Calculus II course. Never went to lectures, never did the work until the night before the exam. Ah, first year...

 

[rh71]

I failed economics in college... I honestly couldn't care less about it - it puts me to sleep. I also failed calc my freshman year because I never took pre-calc in HS... wtf was going on I had no idea.

Ironic that I just put in my 2c in that mortgage vs. investment thread.

I will just say that books / school is not for me.