the end of the semester

Phew. It's nearly over.

I have a couple of marathon days of grading and then I'm done. I know students think that studying sucks, well grading sucks eggs big time.

Not only is it the least enjoyable part of teaching but it can be downright painful when a student you like does poorly.

There are always bright spots in a black humor sort of fashion. I am still amused by the fact that a student showed up to take my exam that I didn't know. Now, I sometimes mix up the names of a couple of my students but I know them all by the end of the semester. This kid had literally skipped all but the first couple of weeks of class including the three semester exams and all of the weekly quizzes and homework assignments. He could have qualified for a WF which is an automatic withdrawal (but failing) for which students who disappear before a certain date qualify but he disqualified himself by showing up for the final. I haven't graded it but it would be really sad if he does well on it and fails anyway.

That's not what was funny about the interaction though (perhaps obvious given that it is rather sad). What's funny is that he walks in and says that he is there to take the final. I ask him for which class. He gives me the call number for my class (at intro. and non-majors levels we have up to eight lecture sections for a given call number) so I ask him who his professor is. He tells me that it's me and so I ask if he's been in my class during the semester. He tells me that he's been in and out (yeah, right). Ultimately I have to ask his name. Amazingly enough I remember his name from the list of students who vanished so I gave him an exam. This is probably a situation where you had to be there but seriously, it was the most surreal exchange I've had in a while with a student.

Can you imagine the balls this kid has? He hasn't shown up for months and then pops in to take the final. Apparently this happens regularly here and so all of the faculty had a good laugh over how far I took my questions. Apparently they are all in the habit of handing out exams to anyone who walks in for finals and then they check to make sure the name isn't that of a student that they know.