CMPT125 class average F

Acubo

The final was hard enough that even though I got 80% on the MT I got a D in the course. The class average was an F, shouldn't the course be scaled? I'm retaking the course so now that I got a D I won't be able to take the upper division courses. Should I talk to someone or just accept it and change my major?

ryan

It is hard to say. Normally in a situation like this I would lean towards suggesting you try some other things and reconsider your intent to peruse computing. This sounds like unusual circumstances though , the average should not be that low.I have heard people complain about the prof in the past. I always thought they were exaggerating, but maybe he really is that bad. The fact you did well on the midterm seems to imply you have a generally good grasp on what you are doing, and perhaps that the final was just really hard.

If I were you I would talk to someone and see what your options are. Have you taken all of the 100 level CMPT courses? If not take some of them and retake 125 with someone else and see where you go from there.If you have taken all of the CMPT courses maybe retake 125 in the fall while exploring some courses from different faculties. After that if you decide to stick with computing you can use the courses as breadths.

I would retake 125 either way. Then if after that you still feel like you like programming, than don't let this experiencing deter you from pursuing it.

Acubo

This would be the third retake so I wouldn't be able to do that :\

BeAnBeAn

I couldn't help but chuckle like an immature little girl each time you said you got "the D" in the course. Can't you retake 5 times? 

iStudent

Just outta curiosity, who was your prof

Acubo

Prof was Lou Hafer. Apparently you can only retake a course once. I would need to get approval from the department and that's extremely rare.

BeAnBeAn

Yeah but bottomline is max is five(?) and I'm sure it would be easy to get approval. Come on now, you have to stop thinking university as education and more of a business lol. It's all about profits, they want your $$$$$!!!! The more courses you take, the more times you take them, and the longer you're at SFU= more $$$$$$$

ezc

The university may want your money, but the departments couldn't care less.  I'm sure any dept. would love to have a student who needed to take a class 5 times just to pass it.

lifeishard

Only Lou Hafer has the ability to make his students have an F average.  

Please do not take anything with him for future reference.  There is something clearly wrong with his teaching style, just look at ratemyprof.  At least for 1st year level CMPT courses, he is a bad teacher because of his teaching style....but for upper level CMPT courses, he may be decent.

iStudent

lou hafer? haha i thought so

kkkkkkkkT

Took cmpt 150 with him and got a F. MT average was 40%. NEVER EVER take any lower level courses with him!

ezc

If this happened to most of the class and is a reoccurring situation with the professor (based on other comments), you might even consider contacting the media (i.e. Global News).  That's not something I normally suggest, but sometimes universities ignore students until there's some kind of outside pressure.  But that really depends on how bad the situation is.  

ryan

Contacting the media is not the answer at all. If you truly feel you have been wronged talk to the administration. One student complaining likely won't lead to much. If half of a class were to complain about it though I am sure they would look into it. If he is as bad as you say, you should have no trouble getting a group together.

ezc

@ryan I was implying if admin doesn't do anything.  By the other comments, this seems to be something that's been going on for a while.  I've never had the prof, so I can't comment as to whether it's true or not.  If entire first year classes have been failed multiple times then the dean and upper admin already know about it, since they have to approve grades.  So, in a way, they would have already done nothing.

If this is true, the dean may be just as much at fault as any prof.

ryan

Reading reviews online it seems like some people are fine with him. Being hard should not necessarily mean being bad. That said I have not had him either so I don't want to come down on any side of the fence.

I do believe going to the media would be a scummy thing to do though, especially for a matter which only affects a small subset of people. I also think that at the end of the day the media would see it that way too. It would have to be one hell of a slow news day for this to become a story. If it ever did, I would feel badly for the poor sap they quote as saying they failed the course because the teacher was no good.

ezc

I have no problem with tough profs either.  I don't even have problems with profs failing a bunch of students, especially if they slack off.  But there's something wrong if a class average for a first year course is an F (assuming that actually happened - again, few of us know what actually happened), especially if it's a regular occurrence.  First year classes have to assume that students are beginners and make adjustments to actually teach them concepts.  The only class I've ever seen an class average under 50% is organic chem, but it's always scaled or marked in a way that pushes people up.  People still get an F, but the dept recognizes it's traditionally a tough class.  I wouldn't even put all the blame on a prof, it should be on the department as well.

While I agree it's unlikely to make a news story, similar stories have made admins change their policies.  A much larger scale of this happened in Liberia and they revised their requirements.  I know stories of this kind of thing come up back east in the states and university admin usually quickly jump in to fix the problem.  I hate when people bring the media into things, but sometimes making some noise does get results, assuming students are legitimately wronged.

BeAnBeAn

I was watching the news today and someone scattered gnomes all over this parking lot. And because of the common myth that gnomes come alive at night, the police put all the gnomes on the parking lot into a police locker (because they are scared they are plotting to take over the world and could come alive again another night). Gayest news ever lol.