What Is It With Such People?

So do you want to know why I had to get up at 7 am today?

There is this one student in my online course who never got in touch, accessed the course website, submitted any of the assignments, or answered any of my emails. He hasn’t dropped out either. I have written to him several times, telling him to get in touch but nothing happened. This is an intensive summer course that will end in two weeks, so you can imagine how behind this student is.

The day before yesterday, he finally emailed me to say that he wanted to see me in person to explain the hugely important reasons that had prevented him from doing any work in the course.

I responded that I would gladly see him in my office but, irrespective of what his reasons for not doing this work were, I would not be able to give him a grade unless he did the work. I told him to start accessing the website and submitting assignments immediately.

Of course, the student never submitted a single assignment or accessed the website. Neither did he show up for the appointment. I did show up because it is my professional duty. Got a lot of work done, too, so I’m not sorry. But I have to ask, what is it with such people? We don’t have ultra-rich students here. The money this student paid to take this course and cover the summer registration fees is probably borrowed or, in the best-case scenario, earned by a family member’s hard work. And he just fritters it in this way? That’s insane.

I do not get such people at all. I also don’t get people who miss an appointment they asked for and never inform one that they will not be showing up.