I'd get fired if I didn't provide make-up classes. I don't miss class anyway. Most schools have a grade appeals protocol. At my school, you have to contest the grade with the professor within 30 days. If you are still not satisfied, then you can bring it to the chair and request that 3 other professors evaluate the work. Of course, then you can bring it to the dean, but if 3 profs already graded it poorly that's a long-shot.

Sorry you had a crap experience.

Whatever you do, don't "confront" the Prof. That will get you nowhere. Having a discussion that is as objective and emotionless as you can muster about the subject is your best bet. Be firm, but be respectful. If you are disrespectful, the whole dept. could get soured on you.

Some people are jerks. What are you hoping for here? A better grade? If so, the university will have procedures in place for the reconsideration of grades. If you're resigned to your grade, but still want to register your dissatisfaction, you should probably write a polite email to the instructor concerned, and copy it to whoever is in charge of studio teaching. Negative feedback that isn't associated with a request for a better grade is always taken seriously.

Well-said and true, agfa.

grades in grad school mean nothing. nadda. zip. zilch.

its not like you need them to apply for a job or getting a home loan. You gotta figure out how to get more out of each professor you face in the future.

turn that project into a great portfolio page or two and move on.

Barry-This guy shouldnt be allowed to get away with pulling this crap again unnoticed...which is why I think Im gonna go with the "polite email" with strategic CC's approach.

Thanks!

beat his ass.

Addendum to Barry's comment: Grades in grad school mean nothing unless you are on an academic scholarship. Then they can mean a great deal.

Or if you have to maintain a certain GPA to even stay in the program, which is true where I teach (3.0 or you're out).

ainslie -

have you talked to other students about this? is their perception the same/similar? that would help your case, if there were some others that could offer their own perspective.

i've been in this situation as the instructor. (not that i was absent, inattentive, etc, but that i was involved in a grade dispute and complaint.) it will help you to talk this through with the director of your school before you write this letter, let him/her see what they can learn about it through some calm conversation. maybe even see if the instructor himself is willing to chat about it.

there is a tendency among students to - um - overdramatize a studio situation. this isn't an accusation, because it's clear why you would be upset. but if you're the only one upset, you can spin yourself into a fury in which no one else is participating.

act calmly and try to defuse the situation. if the instructor has a pattern of this behavior, the director of your school has probably heard it before.

p.s. first year is a tough time.

when i was in first year undergrad, i was on academic probation after first semester. i felt wronged. i felt that they didn't know how smart or talented i was. that they weren't paying attention and hadn't understood my work at all. i felt victimized.

by second semester second year i finally learned that i simply hadn't been paying attention to what the instructors were trying to teach.

it goes both ways.

obviously, we are only hearing one side of the story. it's quite possible that this isn't a very good student and that the instructor had valid reasons for grading as such.

find out where he/she lives....have 2 tons of manure delivered to their house some weekend...tell the driver to 'just dump it in the driveway'

meta - I wanna hear you story: what happened? how'd it get resolved?

mdler - I'd love to get two tons of free compost for my garden, that's a great gift!

doesn't your school have an anonymous end of semester review that students fill out for each class or studio? where i went to grad school, consistent negatives on this could even hurt a professor's pay.

there was a certain unethical prof i didn't get along with. he'd stop me in the hallway and berate me just for the hell of it.
at graduation, he tried to screw me over, so i went waaay above his head. it worked, he was reprimanded and he effing deserved it.

Yes, we have anonymous teacher evaluations...but he didnt bother to pass them out at the end of the semester!!!!!

treekiller

I just got me some worms last night so that I can compost!!!!! Organic heirloom tomatos, here I come!!!!!!!!!!!!

ainslie....sounds like a slacker proffessor to me. Maybe he is working on some project off campus which is taking all his energy.
I think this happens alot more than people would like to admit.

I did have one of those screwed crits when I was in school. I was one of the elder students with a few years of office experience behind me
and we had our studio prof crit and another from within the school. Mine happened to have been dating a friend of mine or wanting to
date her and she gave him a shove off. So when I had him, he made some comment about the size of my columns in the project and I unloaded on him knowing full well the columns were perfectly capable of holding up the building. As I recall I said something like
" isn't that something someone told Frank Lloyd Wright when he was doing the John Wax Tower?" Anyhow my studio professor gave me an A and the jerk gave me a D...... so I ended up somewhere between. It was the end of the Spring Semester and he was on his way out, as he was an associate professor. So you might say I was
screwed. I thought about it all summer while working in an office, registered for Fall classes and the week before school was to start
pulled the plug. Moved into a full time job, finished out my apprenticeship in the field, sat for the exam, passed the exam,
opened my own office eleven years ago.....been on a couple of Magazine covers, been in the New York Times....and you know that
ole turd is most likely screwing around with subdivision fake adobes.

I would say be sure to document he never passed out the evaluation forms. You might want to get a couple of fellow
students to give you a written statement and have an Public
Noterty sign their statement. That way it can be admitted
as evidence. A lawyer can do the same thing but a Public Notery
will do it if not for free for a couple of bucks. Your Bank has some one who is an notery. Actually get two copies signed and give on to the univeristy.

Sit down and put together a journal of your thoughts of where you might have been wronged over the course of the semester. Things
like Professor did not show for class and dates. Be specific and to the point and with dates. So that it is all out there. If you have a
leg to stand on then you will come out on top. If your interested in staying in school this is my advice if you want to pursue this. Check to see what the University policy is for making a claim before you do anything because there is most likely a timeline. If it looks like the
guy totally wasted the whole classes time you might even consider asking the University to give you your money back for the wasted semester. It is unlikely they will but it will let them know your dead serious about what happened.

The last thing in the world you want to do is flame the instructor.

I completely agree with ainslie, I was in the same studio. It was so bad, I truly contemplated not returning to the school.

My 1st semester of grad school studio keeps haunting me like a bad dream. When I questioned him he snapped at me and cut our session short. In fear that he would fail me I took all his bad ideas and I got ripped apart for "HIS" ideas during my final crit. Worse part is I received one of the lowest grades in our class and have a project that is so bad I wouldn't dream of putting it in my portfolio. Talk about a lose/lose situation.

Still haven't decided if I'll do anything. A big part of me wants to put my last semester behind me and focus on the future but I'm reminded of it everytime I see our old professor outside smoking.

Just do your time and get the fuck away from those losers. They dont mean dick in the real world anyways. Play the education game and get out.

I had a studio teacher give me a D once and made me repeat the class. I got a D based on attendance. It threw me back almost 2 years because the school had been changing curriculams. The fat ass piece of shit dean said,"why dont you appeal your grade" I knew it was some sort of acedemic mind fuck. Rather than play by their rules and give them the satidfaction of telling me no, I went and worked for the year. Thank god the Dean is now dead, that prick.

so what did you want, evil, if not a chance to appeal your grade? a freebie pass?

evil said The fat ass piece of shit dean

Tell us how you really feel! ;-)

Who was the dean?

I did want to pass because I did the work and did it well. I just didnt show up to waste my time and their time bullshitting in studio. At my school studio was a bunch of people hanging out for 3 hours hardly doing anything unless it was their turn with the prof. We all know studio is a crock of shit for the most part especially in the mid 90's, when it wasnt quite computerized and wasnt really about hand drafting. Maybe times have changed but my architectural experiance was a joke. I came from construction and was all nervous if I would fit in, be smart enough to hang with the crowd - on my first day someone designed a cake, and another guy gave a speech about how the woods are the only true building were meant to inhabit and I knew right there and then why our profesion is looked at like a bunch of retards on a field trip to the zoo.

LOL, that's going to keep me giggling all night evilp - because it's true!!

Im having a bad day.

...why our profession is looked at like a bunch of retards on a field trip to the zoo.

Sounds like where I went to school in the early to mid 90s. I learned ZERO in school about Architecture. We were in the same boat. Computers were PCs with Versacad. We knew how to make pretty hand drafting presentations but I was way too slow to make a living of it. Visual training and history were good but I didn't know how to design a building. Part of it was my fault but part of it was being in a program that had different dean almost every year and a bunch of lazy profs who saw the job as a way to keep themselves in money no matter how their practices were doing. There were some good people but I will always see Crown Hall as they large empty vessel, this place with so much potential, potential that I never realized. I think and hope it is better there now. I have seen some great projects but I want to see the student work of those who came in knowing nothing. They are a testament to what the school can offer.

Now I have a group of students. I make sure they can define studio. They can tell you the distinction between shade and shadow. They know the dimensions of a modular brick. The know when you use weeps and when you flash or when you do both. They know that making a piece of architecture is a process where the end product isn't always in sight.

And this happens at a 2 year college!

Make - I know I sound bitter about archi-education but its because young folks are being robbed and set up for failure by the thousands.

i did learn some critical design thinking - by a couple profs - visitors for the semester, who engaged on a technical level, and were owners of their own practices. They found pleasure in making it real and exploring reality which is always more powerful than fiction. But really, 3 years of studio is all you really need. More studio makes you better at presenting, possibly at designing too in the short term, but at a terrible cost to your growth as an architectural candidate.

If you just didn't turn up to studio, you would fail in almost every architecture degree I've ever heard of.

Sounds like you shot yourself in the foot.

i went to about 60% of my studios. But really - if you meet mon, wed fri for 3.5 hours a day, and its mostly "work time" whats the point? the work can be done remotely or shorten the studios to 1.5 hours mini crits with the prof. I think the schools are clinging to this "studio" concept thats just outdated and possibly never been. What they should be doing is getting some education for all that time and money. Maybe teaming up with the engineering students and doing some real projects. But more likely its old dudes who did a building in 1973 telling us about some shit they know is bull too.

well I'll be getting my license in about 6 weeks. They can try but they cant stop the evil

That all sounds a little dramatic, evilp, don't you think? "being robbed and set up for failure by the thousands"

Not everybody's going to be an architect, either because of lack of talent, lack of ambition, lack of employment opportunities, or even by choice. But those things don't really have to do with your education.

I feel that I get a really excellent balance of theory/artsy-fartsy studio stuff, as well as technical stuff in my program, but I also know that 1) When I graduate, no employer is going to care about my theoretical studio work, and 2) I'm going to have to learn a LOT of technical stuff once I finally get a job.

No school can prepare everybody for everything. If students feel ripped off or cheated, they can raise their voices or leave. Nobody is forced to be there.

My students have 5 hours studios twice a week, and they work their asses off in class. If I'm doing a desk crit with one, they are all getting feedback from each other. If there's no collaboration, what's the point? I would hate having short studios with short desk crits - we do that in grad classes and it works well, but for undergrad they need that constant support of prof and studio mates.

I guess it's up to the professor to make the studio time work for everyone, and make sure the entire time is engaged in learning. If you're just sitting around waiting for your chance at a desk crit with the prof, then your time is being wasted. Is that what most students experience?

++

I'm going to re-open this thread...for my sanity.

I'm in my 3rd year of a B.Arch program and I've just had the worst semester of my life...possibly the worst 4 months of my life.
Up until this past fall, I had a 3.6. Almost all As..a few high Bs. Studio was my lowest grade at a B. After 4 months of conflicting feedback and critique from 2 co-instructors who clearly were on different pages and constantly contradicting each other, assigments emailed days after class ended leaving basically the weekend to do a shit-load of work, 3-minute desk crits, being bitch-slapped if I showed up to class with anything other than EXACTLY what they told me to do (which is generally an approach I tend to resist...I mean this is studio, right?!!...isn't this MY project?!) I received my first F in all my 38 years. And unjustly so....no doubt in my mind or the people close to me. The work is there..but because I was trying to build/draw what they were telling me to, it was unsuccessful
I know...life is unfair and sometimes it sucks. I try to teach my kids this...that things happen and you have to learn to roll with it...but to say I'm devastated would be an understatement. I've lost my financial aid, my tuition re-imbursement...months and months of work and hundreds of dollars spent on materials.
I appealed and they denied...which I expected because my school is made up of mostly volunteer faculty in a very tight, architecturally conservative area. There is a brotherhood among architects, as with almost any field. Also, why would they take my side and risk losing these hard-to-find volunteers?
I'm really starting to question whether I should be doing this. Is it really worth all the money and time and verbal beatings we take?
And who's to say it won't happen again? I certainly never saw this grade coming.
As the poster mentioned earlier, this grade haunts me like a bad dream.

So, my question is this-
Do you ever recover fom an unfair F in Studio?
Does the pissed-off-ness ever fade?
Can I go on to become an architect or am I doomed to a life of AutoCAD?
Help.

i've never heard of anyone getting an F except for missing a shitload of classes or completely dismissing the projects. assuming that isn't the case, you need to appeal higher than your professors.

but what school has 'volunteer' faculty that fails students? you might want to consider another school.

You need to talk with the head of the arch department about the grade, if that doesn't work the dean of the arch school, if that doesn't get you anywhere the dean of students. If you did work, you don't deserve an F.

PTSD

I was yanked once in Studio.. by an Associate Professor....My Semester Studio Prof gave me an A and the Toad gave me an D. So it did f***-up my GPA for Scholarship money. Took the Summer to think about it but pre-registered for Fall Classes. I decided a week before Fall Semester to Bail....went to work in office....sat for the exam.... had my own private practice for the past 10 years. I would not encourage the route I took. I never applied for Student Aid when in school because I was working at a rather high pay scale on a part time basis.

Truth be told, go ahead and stick it out. In time you will come to see all the good things about University and maybe one day you will
have the opportunity to really prove the Profs wrong. You know win a major competition, land the dream job...or stumble upon the dream client.

I never missed a class. Never missed an assignment. I think it may have been a bit of a personality conflict. What started off as a productive dialog quickly deteriorated over the weeks into "Why didn't you do what we told you?! Michael sent you pictures that he wanted you to draw! Where are they?!" My response was "But that's not what I'm trying to convey...it's not what I see in my head" (My concept for this boathouse was 'fear'...assigned to me by them based on a passing comment I made during our site analysis). There are many,many interpretations of fear, for god's sake! They wanted gore, I saw detachment and isolation....which personally I thought would have made a much more interesting project.
Anyway....yes, mostly volunteers for instructors....and mostly all friends outside of the school (Boston is a small town, believe it or not!) A jury of their peers I guess you could say.
I've absolutely considered switching schools and would jump at the chance...except that this is the only one in the area that allows me to work during the day.
The best advice I ever received/heard in school was from my Materials and Methods professor who said "Don't ever let anyone make you feel like you can't be an architect....there is room for everyone in this field and we need all types."

so you're at bac.

did you receive one of these:

"Mid-semester Warnings
Instructors are asked to fill out a warning form for students who by mid-semester are not performing up to expectations for a particular course. The instructor may also recommend specific steps to be taken. A copy of the mid-semester warning is kept in the student's file, and the original is mailed directly to the student. Students who receive mid-semester warnings are urged to seek out academic advising to assist in successfully completing the course."

me+3: I feel terrible for you. Losing financial aid is devastating, and the fact that youa re a parent (right?) I'm sure emans youa re struggling to make ends meet anyway.

I don't know what kind of advice to give you on getting that grade appealed or whatever, sounds like it is a done deal. But don't for a minute think you can't be an architect beasue of it. It is a huge financial and emotional setback, but it's one crap smemester of many and hopefully the others will be good.

Your school sounds amazingly suspect. Maybe you should consider switching, if that's at all possible. As jeffe said, what kind of school lets "volunteers" fail students? The professors should be just as accountable as you are. They should be evaluated and appealed grades should be discussed at higher levels while considering the specifics of each situation.

I mean for godssake..."design a boathouse based on "fear", how the hell is that even gradeable?!? This is why my husband, who teaches art, uses attendance and completion of a few written research assignments as part of the grade. If a student blows off both but does amazing art, they still won't pass the class. If they show up and complete the assigments AND make an effort towards the making of art, they'll pass. Because how can one decide if a half-life-size altar ego self-portrait as a glam rock fireman deserves an A or a D? (That was one he critted today and apparently was amazing, even though all the other students don't get what this kid is up to my husband thought it was great.)

Good luck to you.

me+3

every university course is required to have a syllabus. within the syllabus, grading criteria must be explicitly outlined, and each project may also have grading criteria attached. again, how else do you decide if one generative form is better than another? check your studio syllabus and project briefs.

if you are meeting grading criteria and being failed then i would seriously consider seeing the administration about this. usually when a grade lower than a C is given the educational system has a series of warnings and other paperwork that must be sent to the student before mid-term.

that's fucked up.

This thread is really disheartening. I went back to grad school because I'd like to teach architecture students some day, and I've had some really great teachers, and I've seen some really bad ones. In the rare instance where I actually had to endure a studio with a crappy professor, I put up enough of a front to make a passing effort but nothing that satisfied them, because frankly they didn't deserve it.

But these stories happen all over, don't they? What is it that drives these professors to have such vindictive attitudes towards people who are very clearly trying to learn? I agree with lb's husband, how can you fail someone who put in the effort, showed up for class, did the work? I can't ever imagine treating a student the way I hear of other students being treated on this thread.

Your college or university's administration is there for a reason. Use it, be diplomatic, but be firm. And I would suggest maybe consulting a lawyer, if you have free legal hours anywhere you can visit? My lawyer friends, even if they can't help me with a specific problem, always seem to have the right language.

Oh and by the way....please keep us posted. I think it's important for you to have outside perspective.

I'm so glad I re-started this thread. All of your words have only re-inforced to me what I'm been telling myself for the last several months...that I got screwed.
WonderK...I agree that it's important to have outside perspective because it's very easy to start believing your own bad press.
el jeffe: Never received any written warning, no recommendations for improvement. There was a blanket email sent to the whole class the Monday after Thanksgiving telling us we all suck and we'll never get all of our work done. 5 mins. later, I received an email telling me "to get busy or we'll fail you" (with less than 3 weeks left in the semester!) It was only when I responded saying that I would challenge the grade that my name was sent to Advising. Even the woman in Advising was baffled.
Also, they brought in 2 large bottles of wine for our final crit. Lovely gesture...except that we had under-age students in the class. Nit-picky on my part, maybe...but I have a son who will be a senior and applying to architecture schools in the fall. I know he'll drink...it's part of the experience, but to think that he'll do it in a classroom with stuff provided by the TEACHER is outrageous to me! But what it really says is that these 2 men feel as though the rules simply don't apply to them. Their hubris is amazing.
Cowerd: The first thing I did when I started compiling my appeal was print off the syllabus and the faculty handbook and hi-lited al the violations. I also included emails and class notes and comments from guest critics...all supporting my argument. Cost me $4 to mail it. Their response? "She argues blahblahblah....her teachers countered...unanimously denied."
I think it was the "unanimous" part that bothered me the most because essentially it was my word against theirs.
How can it then be 'unanimous'?
How can anyone be certain without actually meeting or speaking with me?...or seeing my work pinned up?

Teaching is an art form....a gift. Not everyone can do it. But at my school, all you need is a portfolio and a resume...at least according the the faculty handbook.

me+3, this sounds completely outrageous.

I actually am fantasizing about you spilling the names of the teachers and publishing their email correspondence (which you probably should not do, although it would also give them the opportunity to both defend themselves and/or tell their side of the story here in the Court of Archinect haha).

I'm assuming these are licensed architects teaching your class and I for one would like the opportunity to ask them how they think they are furthering the profession through these actions? If they violated the faculty handbook and terms of their own syllabus they should not have a leg to stand on. It sounds to me like the entire curriculum is bogus - is it NAAB certified? Maybe it shouldn't be.

Are you sure you want to be an architect? A lot of us are great but a lot of us are insecure assholes too. Sounds like you got the latter as your professors.

I got a B in a studio which I knew was undeserved just by the work I had done...the fact was that the specific professor and I did not get along. I told the associate dean about my issues and she set up a meeting with all three of us where I was able to go through the professors grades and do the math on the spot that showed my grade was actually a b+ boardering on an A-, like 89.4...I just started laughing and in the meeting said that he was the first professor I had ever had that had given me a grade that even he himself did not give me...I told them ass. dean and the prof I would be ok with the B+ as that was what they gave me...but i will never forget that...the prof just low balled me because he felt like...his own numbers screwed him and needless to say he was taken down a few notches and all of this in front of the associate dean.

I told the associate dean, not, I told them ass...what a snafu.

me + 3, if you really have all that documentation, how could this be a case of you word vs. the profs? what documentation do the faculty have to support their claims against you?

if they are failing to follow the protocol outlined in the handbook and syllabus, they should not be able to fail you.

are there any other faculty you can get on your side? or even fellow students? ask them to write letters giving their appraisal of your work, and specifically discussing your work as it related to the stated assignment. even asking architects outside of the program to do this might be helpful.

if you have documented all you can, and gone through all of the channels within the institution (including dean, president, board of trustees, etc) i'd say the next step is to go outside the insitution. NAAB is the obvious choice, though in Boston it might be worth checking in first with the BSA to see if they are able to offer any sort of mediation.

from what you describe of the situation, there is no way in hell you deserved an F.

Liberty Bell-I hesitate to even admit where I go to school out of fear that it will bite me on the ass. I wonder what their defense would be....the one consistent comment I remember was that I was "working below my potential"....so maybe this would be their answer. Also, that my work was 'too literal'..a phrase that I loathe. They kept sending me links to Dali's work and telling me to create something 'truly horrific..make the hair on my neck stand up...creating a roof that mimics rotting flesh!'....huh?!
Also berating me for not drawing like Piranesi.
I couldn't win with these two.
I believe they both have their master's....one of them actually went through the graduate program at my school....which may explain the loyalty. Can't say for sure either of them have their license.