When your college age child is sick

[rlk]

Does the math professor want him to come to class sick? He could be contagious, that is not the professor's call. Has the professor learned nothing from the pandemic?
This should be reported to the school. It is not his fault he is sick and should not be academically penalized.
Glad he is on the mend.

My son's engineering professor granted him an extension until Monday for his mid-term, which is what my son was hoping for.
The quiz was in his math class and his professor did not give him any other option. My son is deciding whether he will email his advisor and the undergrad student representative from his major. He is worried about blowback from his math professor.

 

[mjkacmom]

Does the math professor want him to come to class sick? He could be contagious, that is not the professor's call. Has the professor learned nothing from the pandemic?
This should be reported to the school. It is not his fault he is sick and should not be academically penalized.
Glad he is on the mend.

I’m on 3 college parent Facebook pages, the majority of students are sick right now, my daughter gave up trying get into the healthcare center on campus and local urgent cares and did a teledoc appointment yesterday. She been on antibiotics twice this semester. I had to instacart her sister honey, musinex and tissues last weekend, she was dying (different college).

 

[rlk]

I’m on 3 college parent Facebook pages, the majority of students are sick right now, my daughter gave up trying get into the healthcare center on campus and local urgent cares and did a teledoc appointment yesterday. She been on antibiotics twice this semester. I had to instacart her sister honey, musinex and tissues last weekend, she was dying (different college).

I hope your daughters are feeling better very soon.
My son was grateful that his professor is giving until Monday. As for his math quiz, he knows what the policy is and will have to accept the outcome, but I encourage him to advocate for himself. He will have to decide if it is worth persuing.

 

[mjkacmom]

I hope your daughters are feeling better very soon.
My son was grateful that his professor is giving until Monday. As for his math quiz, he knows what the policy is and will have to accept the outcome, but I encourage him to advocate for himself. He will have to decide if it is worth persuing.

Will his professor drop the lowest grade? I think it’s wonderful it was put off until Monday. I know my daughter had to miss at least one class because she could’t get out of bed. My older kids got sick freshman year, but this year is nuts!

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Does the math professor want him to come to class sick? He could be contagious, that is not the professor's call. Has the professor learned nothing from the pandemic?
This should be reported to the school. It is not his fault he is sick and should not be academically penalized.
Glad he is on the mend.

It's college, it's the big leagues. Reporting to the school is like way overkill. That reminds me of the other thread where a poster mentioned parents seemed to either be micromanaging or hands off. People have been sick in college before, hardly the first time, hardly the last time. It is the professor's call as to what they do. Why in the world would you liken that to being the professor's call for a student showing up to class? Goodness they are in college, whether they show up to class ever is their own decision.

There's zero harm in the student approaching the professor (as the OP's son has done) to see what can be done but no need for your type of overreaction.

 

[RUDisney]

I hope your daughters are feeling better very soon.
My son was grateful that his professor is giving until Monday. As for his math quiz, he knows what the policy is and will have to accept the outcome, but I encourage him to advocate for himself. He will have to decide if it is worth persuing.

I had a professor in undergrad that gave punishment assignments if you didn't attend his class. His was THE MOST boring of all of the classes I took. I was physically present for all but the second to last class. My DGF died and I thought it better to be at his wake with my family than in his class. In the prof's mind, there was no reason for anyone to ever miss his class. He didn't want to hear my "excuse", but I talked over him and told him where I was. His response was, "oh."

My BFF's Dad passed away the day before her pathology final in med school. Her prof didn't bat an eye and the only thing that changed was that none of her classmates had their grades released until she took the test, too.

FF to my MBA work. I had a prof that gave a ridiculous take home mid-term. It had 10 questions on it and it took me 5-hours to answer the first 5, and I would have had to go to the library, pre-internet, to research the remaining 5 questions. I went to his office and told him how absurd his test was and after we talked, it turned out that my advisor put me in the wrong class. I had to finish the class in order for my work to pay for it, so he gave me a project to do instead. I completed that, through the Small Business Development Center and I gave both him, under his door, and the SBDC a copy of the final work.

He had a private office and claimed that I never finished it. I was livid, but expected it. That's why I also gave a copy to the SBDC. That was able to validate that I had handed it in on schedule. I wrote a letter to the president of the school, detailing everything and the professor was no longer working for the school the next semester. I don't have any idea if it had anything to do with me. It wasn't my intention to get him fired... just a little coaching on running a classroom... and to get my failing grade back to what it should have been in the first place.

Some professors think that the PhD gives them rights and privileges above us average folks. Others understand life and that things that come up that weren't expected and they work with us instead of punishing us for things outside of our control.

 

[barkley]

I had a professor in undergrad that gave punishment assignments if you didn't attend his class. His was THE MOST boring of all of the classes I took. I was physically present for all but the second to last class. My DGF died and I thought it better to be at his wake with my family than in his class. In the prof's mind, there was no reason for anyone to ever miss his class. He didn't want to hear my "excuse", but I talked over him and told him where I was. His response was, "oh."

My BFF's Dad passed away the day before her pathology final in med school. Her prof didn't bat an eye and the only thing that changed was that none of her classmates had their grades released until she took the test, too.

FF to my MBA work. I had a prof that gave a ridiculous take home mid-term. It had 10 questions on it and it took me 5-hours to answer the first 5, and I would have had to go to the library, pre-internet, to research the remaining 5 questions. I went to his office and told him how absurd his test was and after we talked, it turned out that my advisor put me in the wrong class. I had to finish the class in order for my work to pay for it, so he gave me a project to do instead. I completed that, through the Small Business Development Center and I gave both him, under his door, and the SBDC a copy of the final work.

He had a private office and claimed that I never finished it. I was livid, but expected it. That's why I also gave a copy to the SBDC. That was able to validate that I had handed it in on schedule. I wrote a letter to the president of the school, detailing everything and the professor was no longer working for the school the next semester. I don't have any idea if it had anything to do with me. It wasn't my intention to get him fired... just a little coaching on running a classroom... and to get my failing grade back to what it should have been in the first place.

Some professors think that the PhD gives them rights and privileges above us average folks. Others understand life and that things that come up that weren't expected and they work with us instead of punishing us for things outside of our control.

i had a professor in college who on the first day of class both verbally told our class and gave us in writing the option of either turning in our weekly assignments weekly OR submitting them all on a designated date about 2 weeks out from the final. about 4 weeks out from the final he announced in class that 'too many' of us had opted not to hand them in weekly and 'there's no way i can get all of them graded along with the finals by MY deadline' so he was revoking the date and all the assignments were due the following week people were in a panic. 2 of my classmates and i were livid so we went to the office for the head of the department and requested an emergency appointment. that afternoon we met with the department head and explained what had happened. she listened, said 'don't worry, i will address this'. the next day in class the professor made an announcement that the assignments were once again due on the original date and through clenched teeth said 'i also want to publicly apologize for any distress my instructions of yesterday may have caused any of you. lack of planning on my part should not necessitate an emergency on your part' (the head of the department followed up with the 3 of us specifically to make sure that the apology had been delivered to the class).

i was not a helicopter college parent with my kids. the one and only time i got involved was something i just found so egregious i felt i had to get clarification and if as i suspected and it was wrong-the department head needed to be aware and address it immediately. in this case my oldest was in her junior year in a major wherein you only took the core classes jr/sr year (and not a major where if you changed to another they would be transferable at all). in the final quarter of jr. year all of a sudden one day one of the professors makes the point of telling the students that some of them are falling a bit short, and that everyone needs to remember that they are in a 'highly selective' major so that means it's not guaranteed that you will be 'chosen' to do a senior year/get a degree. she goes on to say that if someone is even remotely nervous about being 'chosen' that 'now is the time to drop your classes and change majors'. dd calls me, she was doing fine in all her classes but she had never heard of this 'choosing' concept for her program so she was freaking out a bit, and she had classmates who were outright breaking down b/c they were thinking their planned college paths were not the solid plans they thought. i reviewed the program on the university's website-it was not a 'highly selective major' (the university doesn't have ANY-if you meet the minimum gpa for a major you can progress and graduate). i tell my dd not to worry but without telling her i called the division that her major was under and asked to speak to whomever handled her specific major. ended up with the head of the division that her major was under. told him i was a parent and wanted clarification over what was online/printed in the university catalog vs. what was being told to students. when he heard what had been said he was LIVID. seems that the program my dd was in had some staff shortages and some of the existing staff was grumbling about how they should hire more staff or reduce the number of students they admitted so it sounded to him like this one professor had decided to try and 'cull the herd' this had been an early morning class so he must have called an emergency staff meeting b/c by the time those students hit their first post noon class EVERY professor in that department was issuing a statement of claification to correct what the other professor had said (they heard in every class for the remainder of the day/that evening and repeated over the next few days). the professor that said it also issued the statement but hers, like the one my class got when i went to college-included a personal apology.


some issues with professors demand questioning. students are held accountable under a code of ethics, professors should be ethical as well.

 

[Princessclab]

My son's engineering professor granted him an extension until Monday for his mid-term, which is what my son was hoping for.
The quiz was in his math class and his professor did not give him any other option. My son is deciding whether he will email his advisor and the undergrad student representative from his major. He is worried about blowback from his math professor.

This is awful. I worked at the University level academia and this is not acceptable especially now.
Your son should email his advisor and the student rep but also tell them he is worried about blowback from this professor.
At least it has been documented/ reported to the school; this may be an ongoing wrong behavior of the professor and they may know. That is abusive and could eventually be cause for discipline if it is reported enough.

Never mind that it seems so petty......he must be tenured. Often those professors sit on their tenure and are really bad at teaching etc. at the expense of students who pay a lot for a college/university education. I have worked with and had those professors for classes.
Especially now when colleges/universities are loosing students because of these types of behaviors by the school.
Good luck!

 

[lifesavacation]

Update: Today is the first day my son is fever-free and feeling up to tackling schoolwork. He emailed his professors letting him know that he was missing classes this week. Unfortunately, he's a quiz this afternoon and a mid-term tomorrow. His math professor said no makeups for the quiz and he is waiting to hear from his other professor about his mid-term.

I am so grateful he is recovering but feel for him because of the situation he is in. If he was just not pulling his weight, I would understand, but he is normally a very conscientious student. Ugh, watching from the sideline is hard!

Glad he's getting better.