planet pujolsian wrote:Your questions about other sources of recommendations are good ones, sigh and BW. Unfortunately, these people are lacking in respect with all their professors and don't show any type of responsibility across the board. They come to you because they either suspect you're an easy mark or they think you might have empathy. I'd venture to say it was the latter.
I've never been asked to write one on someone I wouldn't have wanted to. The informal stuff I've had to skirt the issue, but I guess I'm lucky on the more formal ones.
The thing I hate is those that get good recommendations when they're lazy and bad employees/students, like pop touches on, that get the good recommendations so they won't be "our" problem anymore. That bothers me on way too many levels, but mostly that it doesn't reflect well on us once the new employer sees just how bad they are.
Aside from the yelling at her, I don't blame you a bit. My mother teaches and I hear the same type of stories - students expecting teachers to bail them out, but not even near willing to meet them halfway.
I keep trying to get my mom to be harsher with these students. Telling her to remind them that it won't be like this in real life.
Last semester, I had a student who rarely came to class, and when she did, she never brought her book, and was unwilling to participate in class discussion. She always looked sour and snotty.
She asked me for a letter of recommendation, but I declined, mentioning that she did come to class enough for me to be familiar with her work.
After that, she boycotted the class, avoided me, and I found out that she trashed me on the internet. Oh well.
Sadly, her last two assignments for the semester were plagiarized, so she failed the course.
Gashouse wrote:So did she give you a bad score one of those prof rating sites?
Yeah, but she couldn't even remember the course number of the class and got it completely wrong. She didn't say anything substantive--just something snarky about how she'd rather sit on a large, sharp nail than sit in the class. (She really needs to read Freud, by the way.) I e-mailed the site and said that I'd never taught that course in my life--which was true. And the comment was removed in five minutes.
I don't have a problem if people have complaints--that's part of life. But at least get facts right and say something relevant and useful.
