College prof. tests to see if his students are paying attention

[MissMillie]

I worked at one of the most prestigious graduate schools in the country (for more than 20 years). I would have said the odds were 30/70 that the students would have found the money. (I didn't have any actual data to base my odds on, just personal experience.)



Professor hid cash prize to prove students don't read the syllabus


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/professor-hid-cash-prize-to-prove-students-dont-read-the-syllabus/ar-AARWFCC?ocid=U483DHP&li=BBnb7Kz

Tennessee university music professor hid a cash prize on campus to see if his students fully read the class syllabus - only to find the crisp $50 bill he had placed in a locker still there at the end of the semester.

Kenyon Wilson, the associate head of performing arts at Tennessee at Chattanooga, decided to hide $50 in a random music locker and bury the combination for the locker in the middle of his syllabus.

The hint read: 'Thus (free to the first who claims; locker one hundred forty-seven; combination fifteen, twenty-five, thirty-five), students may be ineligible to make up classes and ...'

I used to really sweat it out when the professors I worked for didn't give me the information I needed to submit his syllabus on time. I guess I should have known WHY, despite my anxiety over the deadline, the administration never seemed to think that those deadlines were very important.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Sleepwalking through college?

The number of memorable courses in my education? Maybe 5. Of those, 2 shaped my world view. I had courses with 5 original source books to read, and I didn't read any of them and got an 'A'. The relevance of any of it? Not much. If I knew then what I know now.

[MissMillie]

2. That's fair

However, the institution at which I was employed taught by the "case method" and a full 33% of the student's grade was class participation.

AND, grades were issued on a curve, so students who were in the bottom 10% of enough of their courses ran the risk of not graduating.

[central scrutinizer]

3. They don't read the textbook, either

Just turn to the assigned exercises

[SCantiGOP]

4. I had an International Law class in college

Professor, who was an ex-CIA guy, had written several books, appeared on TV news shows, etc., and had retired to our area and decided to teach one class a semester. I was lucky enough (I thought) to be one of the 30 who got into his class.
First day, this grouchy old bastard handed out a 12 page syllabus, ranted about how he was willing to spend hours just to bust one of us if we plagiarized any material on one of the FOUR term papers we would write, and that the syllabus was only for the first half of the semester.
I needed the class since it was my senior year, but three people sitting around me agreed to go and drop the class as soon as he let us go.
The next class, I walked in and there were 12 people in the class. He smiled, and said, "Now, this is more like it. No way I could teach a class that involves dialogue with that many people. And here is the actual syllabus we will use" which had 3 books and the outline of a 5-8 page paper we would write during the semester.
One of the best classes I ever had. This was in the mid 70's, and his defense of US policies in Central America and Southeast Asia had most of the class passionately arguing with him, which he enjoyed and completely tolerated. I think everyone in the class ended up with an A or a B.