“Can I take my final early? I bought plane tickets!”
Posted by Ellen Bremen on Apr 24, 2012 in Communicating with Professors, General | 13 comments
You'll have time to fly after finals. There will be sales then, too!
(And we’re off to the races, everyone! Some of you are moving into end of the term. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we have another month or so before graduation. Regardless, I’d like to talk about a pesky issue that plagues many, many faculty at this time of the year… the scheduled vacation around finals time. And I’m not talking about the faculty’s fantasy trip to the Caribbean!).
“I need to take the final early,” Student said. “I bought plane tickets.”
My colleague, who teaches at another college, told student, “Put your request in writing and I’ll have to take it to the department.”
For the purposes of confidentiality, I’m going to leave the department type out, but I will say that the final is one that is common for all students in that particular discipline.
So student writes an e-mail:
“Dear Professor,
I need to take my final early. I bought plane tickets and will be gone on the day that I’m supposed to take the final exam. You know how much air travel costs these days, so I had to get these tickets when they were on sale. Thanks for working with me.
Student”
Apparently, the department considered the request. What to do? What to do? Here were the Mental Olympics that the department considered :
-Allow the student to take the final early and possibly risk the integrity and security of that final. A no-go.
-Allow the student to take the final early and set a very negative precedent for other students. Why have a finals schedule established at the beginning of the term and why not just let all students take the final whenever they want? Heck, why not tell all students about the airfare sale and encourage them to go on vacation?
-Create a new exam for the student to take. Um, can we say “enabling”?
-None of the above. Tell the student that they have to be there or lose the points and possibly risk their standing in the class.
What did the department do, after their deliberations?
That would be the last option: No concession for the student whatsoever. There was just no way to go about it with fairness to the other students, or by maintaining integrity over the process.
So what’s the communication lesson here? (Didn’t you miss this over the past week or so? I did!)
I’d love to tell you that I have magic words to get what you want in a situation like this, but I don’t. When you sign up for a class, the college-wide finals schedule is typically posted. I realize your argument might be, “But, but faculty change finals times… why can’t I?”
My counter-argument to that is that we are not supposed to change finals times because doing so could negatively impact the pre-scheduled time of another class. If this happens, then you do have the right to alert the faculty that there is a conflict, and if that doesn’t work, let a department/division chair know.
But let’s get back to the student who wants a good deal on airfare: I totally get that. Faculty are in the same boat. We want to go on vacation at the same time as everyone else, and, of course, airlines jack those prices up because it’s always spring break, or summer, or Groundhog Week, or whatever!
But the truth is, you made a commitment to sign up for a class, you made a commitment to the entirety of the schedule that goes along with that class… and it includes your final exam time. And guess what? Faculty made that same commitment. So, we are both bound by what we signed up for… and we have to accept the ramifications of it.
Just because you have a final exam doesn’t mean you can’t still leave the same day and possibly still get the great airfare. There’s nothing wrong with saying to your professor, “Can you give me an idea of how long the final typically takes most students?” This might be particularly helpful if that final is your last or only one of the day. Now you know your prof won’t have a crystal ball to know how long the final will take you, but if two hours is scheduled for the final (at my college, that’s the timeframe, but our departmental final takes students, on average, about 30-40 minutes), at least you’ll know.
Bottom line? Tell your traveling companions: “Hey, I’d love to go to Bora Bora with you on May 18th, but I have a Bio final that day at noon. Can we leave in the evening? The airfare is a little more, but my head will be clearer knowing I’m totally done with school. There’s just no way out of this final without me risking my academic standing and I’ve worked too hard this term for that to happen.”
Anyone who supports you and your education is going to stand by you… and get on that plane with you a little later!
Faculty, how do you handle the “Can I reschedule the final?” issue? Students, are you struggling with an end-of-term issue? Tell me about it! E-mail me at chattyprof@gmail.com.
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A tenured professor of Communication Studies helps students correctly--not cluelessly--speak/deal with those who teach them.
I love this post, Ellen. The bottom line is that students must learn accountability and, sometimes, these lessons hurt.
Hi, Sia,
Great to see you here. Yes, in this case, I’m sure the student probably couldn’t get a refund for that ticket and it ended up costing more in the long run. The exam was absolutely not one that could be missed, either. That would have had serious ramifications. I have to credit the department–they sure did try to think of all the different possibilities. Hopefully the student appreciated that.
Be well!
Ellen
I actually don’t even know why this is an issue. I am just finishing a couple of degrees myself right now and I would never dream of scheduling a vacation during exam break. I had a hard enough time justifying being away the second week of classes to attend a friend’s destination wedding. I felt so bad.
This issue did seem to come up every semester and in every class I attended for the past five years. I can’t believe how many people think that it is permissible to ask for this sort of special accommodation.
Hi, Gia,
It sounds like you are an extremely conscientious student!!! This happens more than you could ever know. On my CP Facebook page, my Bio colleague Chris Gan wrote, “An extremely well written article Ellen, and unfortunately, an all too often relevant one as well.”
I think there is just a perception that finals week has flexibility because the schedule is different? I don’t know! Either that or students are just so desperate to be done that they want to be done even sooner. Or, of course, it is a matter of sheer economics. I know it is typically far cheaper to fly, say, in early December, rather than that everyone-wants-it week of Christmas, right? Same with the start of summer break.
But you’re right. The problem is rampant. And while I love to give the “what to say,” I didn’t have a good one for this.
I appreciate you writing!
Ellen
They definitely brought this point up during Freshman orientation at CU-Boulder this last Fall. Set a price alert on the tickets for traveling when it is acceptable to do so…and buy the tickets early if necessary. But like you said, the testing schedule is posted at the beginning of class – a student is nuts to expect they could “one-off” the system by taking the final early.
It is that same self-centeredness that then gets them into trouble with the real world when they’ve been “enabled”/coddled their entire lives and the real world decides not to flex for them.
Brian,
I hate to say that this happens so, so much. I think that post got more conversation traction on Twitter than I could have imagined. I kept seeing many colleagues out there agreeing. Kind of sad, isn’t it?
Thank you, as always, for writing!
Ellen
I would never dream of messing with the finals schedule – when I was a student, I knew that that was that. And it sucked to have finals scheduled on that Friday, since most of the time my finals schedule worked out so that I didn’t, but I sucked it up and took them anyways. The one exception I would say to this rule is when professors re-schedule finals unreasonably. I have two friends once whose professor decided to move their final to the Saturday after exams week was done – the same day as graduation and not even a part of finals week. Those two friends had done the responsible thing and booked tickets for Saturday since all their finals were supposed to be done by then and they got burned in that situation really bad. I thought that was totally unfair on the part of the professor.
Hi, Melissa,
I really appreciate your e-mail. Bottom line is that I believe it is completely against college policy to do what those professors did. The students needed to report that the second they knew that was the case. There would have been huge ramifications. At most colleges, there are policies against even changing final exam times within the set final exam schedule! I find it pretty unbelievable that profs would have students come in on a Saturday! Oh goodness… who would want to do that (on a Saturday?!?!?!?). In a case like that, like I said, this is a time when a student needs to use his/her voice and go speak to a department/division chair and let that person know what’s going on… before that schedule is even set. Thank you for calling this to students’ attention! Ellen
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