Dear Undergrad: An Exchange
Dear Undergrad,
Please refrain from sending such informal emails to me, your instructor. For your learning pleasure I’ve included your original email followed by an example of how it should have been composed. Enjoy. And Learn.
Subject: [withheld]
From: undergrad
Date: 9/9/09 10:51 AM
To: Graduate Student Instructor
I don’t want to be that one student who is a pain in your ass
constantly missing class and generally fucking shit up. I just
woke up. My rough draft is done. I will find one of my classmates
to do a peer review of it. I live literally 5 minutes from class.
I woke up when my roomate [sic] came in at 9:20 and then layed [sic] back down
for a second only to pass the fuck out. If you could please read
my paper for no other reason than personal enjoyment please do.
Its an analysis of a cosmo article and I tear this bitch up.
Please read it.–
Undergrad
This is what you should have written:
Subject: [withheld]
From: undergrad
Date: 9/9/09 10:51 AM
To: Graduate Student Instructor
Dear Graduate Student Instructor,Let me apologize for being absent today and not turning in my work on time. I have no excuse, I simply overslept. However, I did complete my rough draft and have attached it to this message. In addition, I was able to get a classmate to peer review it. I understand if my grade suffers because I did not turn it in on time, but I did put a lot of work into the essay. I analyzed an article from Cosmo. I think you will find my analysis very thoughtful. Thank you for your consideration.
Best,
Undergrad.
Or a simple: “I’m an idiot,” would have accomplished everything your first email conveyed in approximately 106 fewer words. See you Friday. I hope. Not.
Yours Truly,
Grad Student
–
Undergrads, write to your graduate students here.
Grad students, write to your teacher’s pets here.
All venting is anonymous.
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Dear Grad Student,
This post made me a little sad. While I do agree that this particular undergrad student wrote an inappropriate email to you, I feel that this post undermines ALL undergrads. Let me tell you, not all of us are irresponsible students. Had I missed class (which I never do, by the way), I would have written an appropriate email. I wonder – do you feel this way about all undergrads? Let me tell you, we are all not dumb hooligans. Sometimes grad students scare me and act so pretentious. I want to be like, “dude, stop treating me like a 7 year old.” – but I don’t. For many reasons. First, as you have stated above, you don’t talk to a grad student like that. (Actually, Mr. Grad student – you don’t talk to ANYONE like that. Don’t act like you get some special treatment just because you are a grad student). Secondly, I’m scared that if I expressed my real opinion you would lower my grade. I walk through the semester on egg shells hoping that you like me enough to grade my papers a little bit easier.
But no. I’m the student who attends every discussion, every lecture, turns in ever assignment in on time, and at the end of the day, do I get recognition? Nope. I bet the person who wrote you this email got a better grade on their paper than mine. It’s fine, my good looks will get me through life.
Sincerely,
A ranting undergrad
Dear Undergrad,
I don’t care if ur a brown nosing suck up or a complete slacker as long as you don’t bother me. (The brown nosers are usually worse, cuz they just have to impress) LISTEN, we (grad students) are here (school/lab) every day all day all summer all winter all the time, so what makes you think you can wander in for a few hours and take up space (which we don’t really have enough of) and think that we should even give an ounce of crap about you. Over the summer when you were off at the beach or something there were no lines at dunkin donuts, no crowds in the halls and i didn’t have to hear retarded conversations on the local public transportation like:
UG1: And then like my boy friend came over, and he smoked a cigarette, and then we watched 24.
UG2: OMG I love 24!
UG1: Yeah, me too. And so does my boyfriend – isn’t that great?
But now you’re back, crawling like ants all over the place and being generally annoying.
-GS
Ha, great post. Did somebody seriously write that? Wow.
I sympathize with “undergrad’s” comments. I often felt pretty annoyed as an undergrad that graduate students often acted so superior.