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Too Much Reading. . . *Vent* *Long*
Is there a diplomatic way to express a concern to a professor that you aren't able to complete the assigned reading before class?
This professor is new to the university and I think new to teaching. She's assigning roughly 70-100 pages of reading per week, which, wouldnt be bad if I weren't taking a full course load (all of which are also requiring heavy readings) and it also wouldn't be bad if the pagers weren't scanned copies which are actually two pages each, so its more like 140-200 pages of reading for a week, for one class, 3/4 of which is boring bland statistical crap.
I understand reading is part of college. I've come to accept that. I've also come to accept that in my major, there's a ton of reading, but I feel that this is excessive. Especially since when I get to class, theres usually 1/2 of the students in there already and they're also all expressing the same concern that there's too much reading and we can't finish it all.
Plus. . she's said that there's no guarantee that we'll even discuss the reading, but it could still be on the tests. . . She also wont so much as hint to which ones are more important so that we can attempt to get those read first.
So again, I realize college = reading. I'm not complaining about that, but the amount is crazy. If you want to flame me for whining about reading, go for it, maybe I'm just not in gear enough since coming back from a year and a half break, I'll understand.
Question : Is there a way to bring this up to the professor without earning myself either A) a bad mark with professor B)making myself look lazy or C) earning myself MORE reading.
Thoughts?
Re: Too Much Reading. . . *Vent* *Long*
I dunno. I graduated college nearly 4 years behind in reading.
It always seemed to me that professors pulled much more from their classroom presentations than reading so for the most part, I just didn't bother. Even if they pulled a question about some statistic in the book that you'd read, what are the odds that you'd remember it? Of course, I did major in engineering. This is so not the advice you were looking for.
How many pages/week are you getting from other professors?
Yeah, in my years past, I was behind too, but that's because I was slack then. I wanted to do my best this year and prove to myself that going back was a good thing. . .
Psych Class rangers around 70-80 a week (some chapter reading, some other source reading)
Soc class # 1 (the one mentioned above) 140 is about the average thus far, but has gone up to almost 200 for a week
Soc class # 2 About 40-60 pages a week
Soc class # 3 Not too horrible because its actually interesting - 50 -80 pages a week
I was thinking you could meet with the professor to ask for help/advice. I think if you say something like "I'm having a hard time keeping up with the reading and was curious if you had any advice or suggestions to help me." Maybe say that you are having a hard time identifying key concepts and just feel like you are overwhelmed with the material and was hoping for some guidance. I think with this type of approach you won't come off as complaining, but more as asking for helping on ways to succeed given the large workload. I might also see if you could recruit a few other students to go in to talk to the prof after you as well, so maybe she'll realize the reading is out of hand.
I'm much like Terp in that I definitely never did all of the assigned reading. But I have approached prof's in the above manner to try to figure out how to tackle a class that I felt like I was struggling in. But the good news is that you aren't alone! Hopefully that means you'll at least be on top of the curve!
I really like elissaann's suggestion. I don't think that you want to "tell" her that there's too much reading, but rather "ask" for suggestions on how to keep up. You could also form a group with other students in your class- divide up the reading- and send each other a summary before class so that you only have to do part of the reading but get most of the information.
I like Eliaasann's response too. I hardly ever did a majority of the assigned readings, most of the information on tests came from the class presentations. I did have one teacher though that was redic. She took her test questions from the class presentations, videos she showed AND the assigned reading. You needed a audio recorder for her class. Half the class dropped after the first test and only half of the remaining class even passed. I was happy with my C since I did better than 3/4 of the original class. Some teachers are just insane.
I majored in religious studies & humanities and had the same experience. Going to class and being involved in the discussion was much more helpful when it came to test time than making sure I'd read all the material.
But I had a class like that once. It wasn't with a new teacher, but the class was a new one and I think he was just excited and had a hard time narrowing down what he wanted us to read.
That's when skimming became my friend. I tried to at least look over each article and highlight the things that stood out to me. And as the semester wore on I think he began to realize it was too much because he started out with the same "read it all because I said so" kind of statement and then each week he would start telling us what was going to be most important for the next week, while still encouraging us to read everything.
I don't know if there is a tactful way to address it, but if the professor is doing her job and reading with you each week she'll realize it's too much. Especially if this isn't her only class, she'll get just as bogged down as you.
And if she sticks to it and calls you or someone out in class for not reading all the material that's when I would be honest and tell her it's just too much with all your other classes. Likely some other students will pipe up too, and what is she going to say if most her class is telling her the reading to too much? It's like when over half the class fails a test, that usually is an indicator of bad teaching rather than lazy students.
Are you in Grad School? If so, "welcome" to the world of reading! Aghhh! I'm right there with you my friend!
Elissaann posted exactly what I was going to suggest. In fact, I have done this myself! I had to read a ton of scientific journals for a few of my classes and it just became overwhelming, to say the least. I went to my professor and he suggested I skip the "materials and methods" section.
Also, it's just a good idea to meet with your professor. Give them the opportunity to put a face with a name. I feel the more contact you have with your professor the more she will be able to help you.
Good luck!!
I'm an undergrad, but I've heard the horror stories about grad school and the reading.
I want to thank you all! I really appreciate your suggestions and I did take it and went and spoke with my professor.
After the talk, I feel better about the whole situation. The suggestion given to me was to read the intro + conclusion first, then read all I can within an hour and I should be good to go. I'm not exactly how sure that'll work, but I'm willing to give it a try.
Sorry to ranting. I was stressed last night due to the course load and had a slight freak out. I really appreciate all of your inputs!!
You're all great !
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