Today after the Global Perspectives class I saw in the hallway three of my groupmates who I work with on the Political Risk Analysis paper. From a distance I noticed they had quite an involved conversation. Naturally, I assumed they were discussing our paper, so I joined them.
Turned out they were not concerned with the Global Perspectives course. They were talking about Macroeconomics course they had in Fall semester. I was surprised they were still mulling that case, but it also told me how much they were affected by the whole experience in that class. I actually mentioned briefly about this situation and the fact that not all professors are made equal.
While hanging around with these guys for a bit I learned the root of their anxiety. Apparently professor failed about 10% of the class. I knew about their bad experience with the class, but until today I did not know how actually bad it was. This was the first time I heard personally about MBA students being failed on the course. And 10% is a lot!
I did not want to embarass the guys by asking if anyone of them personally got a failed grade in the course. But at the best they got very low passing grades since they were concerned about it until now. However, the center of the conversation was the rumor that professor had been removed from teaching in the future. Apparently, he got low course evaluations from the students too, and combined with the high failing rate the department was prompted to act on that. So, at least I can remove him from my “watchlist” for now.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
10% IS a lot! One of the student contributors to our website from ESADE had a similar shock at b-school: ‘Meanwhile, two students’ worst nightmares were realized as they were asked to pack their ESADE messenger bags and leave – a month into the second term.’ (http://www.businessbecause.com/school-news/an-mbas-most-dreaded-day.htm).
I suppose it maybe shows that marking standards are high at GWSB? My question is, was it really right to dismiss the prof because the students didn’t like being told to work harder…?
Thanks for your comment, Sian.
I think the issue was not just with how hard working were the students. The problem was, as far as I understood from conversations, that the exam and the course material were mismatched badly, and the actual teaching was poor. So, if that was true, it was right for the school and for the future students.