Dept is contesting a sick note?

Cool_CM · 18-05-2009 07:17PM

How did you get on? In fairness, it is a totally ridiculous situation to be placing a final year student in, especially before/during the exams. Surely technicalities like this can be sorted out after the exams have been sat, doing it beforehand and placing even more pressure on somebody who is about to sit their finals isn't really on at all.

Eric Cartman · 18-05-2009 08:33PM

make sure you have a copy of the sick note , i didnt get to hand in 2 assignments to an all continuous assesment module last year and i handed in a sick note to the lecturer, he didnt give me the marks and i asked for my sick note back so i could go to the department head, his response "what sick note" , had to repeat the module this year

banquo · 18-05-2009 10:20PM

Warning: slightly Off Topic.

Funny story. My housemate, since January, has been attending a particular module for his course. The module appears on his moodle page and on his official registration form. It's a typical 60 credit degree.

But here's the thing. Turns out he's been doing one extra module than he was supposed to be doing. Did the exam and everything. Naturally, he doesn't really see the funny side.

@Cartman - that's just awful. There's nothing like an administrative cock-up to totally screw you over.

Michellenman · 18-05-2009 10:41PM

banquo wrote: »

Warning: slightly Off Topic.

Funny story. My housemate, since January, has been attending a particular module for his course. The module appears on his moodle page and on his official registration form. It's a typical 60 credit degree.

But here's the thing. Turns out he's been doing one extra module than he was supposed to be doing. Did the exam and everything. Naturally, he doesn't really see the funny side.

That is so crappy! How did he not realise?!

porn_star · 18-05-2009 11:39PM

thought it was the music department when i first read this. i handed in a couple of late assignments at the end of semester one, they were only a few days late. had a death in my family so was in cork the week they were due. had ten percent taken off them for being a late submission, only actually found this out today when i was collecting an essay for this semester and remembered that i hadn't collected one of them...the other two that i handed in late, i got back without any writing on them, the lecturers had kept the ones with the marks written on them, but i presume there was ten percent off of them aswell.
kinda was taken aback when i found out and didn't say anything, but it's been in the back of my mind all day. if i was in any other year i'd probably just forget about it, but being in my final year i'm pretty annoyed about it, i wonder what goes through this committee's mind, when they see something a few days late, the reason being a death and then they think "hey, it's late, may aswell knock ten percent off of it, even though it's a final year essay... let's put a little bit more pressure on". Seems pretty unfair.
I've never had to use a sick cert or anything and have always gotten assignments in on time.
The only other department's policy I know is the English Department's and I think it works much better.. 5% taken off for every day it's late for not being complete or whatever and then if it's late cos of illness you just need a sick cert.

castie · 27-05-2009 03:54AM

You had a week to go and get it and could not spare 30-40 mins out of one day to go do it? You could of made an evening appointment and not queued at all.

They have the right to request further medical certs if the original cert was either vague OR pertained to an extended period where more visits would have been necessary.

porn_star: Did you hand in the death certificate?

I had to give a death certificate and proof of relation so it would be taken into consideration for UCC a few years back. If they were to just take peoples words or notes from family then the national death rate would be greatly exaggerated.

castie · 27-05-2009 03:57AM

Eric Cartman wrote: »

make sure you have a copy of the sick note , i didnt get to hand in 2 assignments to an all continuous assesment module last year and i handed in a sick note to the lecturer, he didnt give me the marks and i asked for my sick note back so i could go to the department head, his response "what sick note" , had to repeat the module this year

Thats why your meant to give it to the department secretary or the examinations office. Lecturer probably put it down and forgot all about it. Came to the exam board meeting and no one had anything regarding your sickness so the exam board failed you.

castie · 27-05-2009 04:00AM

As for questioning medical certificates.
Employers have the right that you be assessed by their own doctors.

The Doctor in question told me after I went to him with a stomach bug that I had extreme food poisoning and wrote a note saying this. If he can tell that by looking at me then hes either got magical powers and is House in disguise.

*Tripper* · 27-05-2009 12:19PM

The Dept. should have absolutely no right to know what condition you were suffering from if the doctor says you were unfit to complete an assignment. At the end of the day your doctor is the one who knows best not some stuffy auld one sitting in Logic or whatever it's called.

I always thought the reason MOST(not all of course) lecturers were lecturers was because they were completely blinded by there own ignorance and failed badly working in the real world for real companies.

mp3guy · 27-05-2009 01:09PM

*Tripper* wrote: »

I always thought the reason MOST(not all of course) lecturers were lecturers was because they were completely blinded by there own ignorance and failed badly working in the real world for real companies.

Talk about ****ing LOL. Are you actually serious?

banquo · 27-05-2009 02:58PM

castie wrote: »

You had a week to go and get it and could not spare 30-40 mins out of one day to go do it? You could of made an evening appointment and not queued at all.

I see your point - I really do - but it's just more complicated than that.

Not really a week. I came home tuesday to find it, wednesday is doctor's day off, thursday I had exams and had to go home to babysit my little sister so she can't take drugs/get pregnant while my mam was away. Friday I had two long exams, I work 10-6 on saturday, sunday the doc is off and it was due monday morning against another 2hr exam.

castie · 27-05-2009 04:35PM

The practice has evening hours.
If I was in the committees shoes right now I would defo be thinking something was not right.

LeixlipRed · 27-05-2009 04:50PM

*Tripper* wrote: »

I always thought the reason MOST(not all of course) lecturers were lecturers was because they were completely blinded by there own ignorance and failed badly working in the real world for real companies.

Or it could be their dedication to research and education along with a hefty salary that makes them go down that route??

lordgoat · 27-05-2009 09:43PM

First off this thread will have done you zero favours, i'd be pissed that they questioned the note but you should have gone to the doctor got the note after your exam and went in and talked to the lecturer saying look i understand wherer you're coming from but this is what happened. Or gone to your SU rep and went through her.

porn_star · 28-05-2009 06:59AM

castie wrote: »

porn_star: Did you hand in the death certificate?

I had to give a death certificate and proof of relation so it would be taken into consideration for UCC a few years back. If they were to just take peoples words or notes from family then the national death rate would be greatly exaggerated.

nope, I asked before I even handed them in would I need a death certificate so I could get it in time from Cork, but I was told it wasn't required.

pisslips · 28-05-2009 11:38AM

LeixlipRed wrote: »

Or it could be their dedication to research and education along with a hefty salary that makes them go down that route??

It's not like everyone's gonna be a department head and even then it's probably more about administration and management and reputation.

In fairness the majority would get paid more in industry research but then once people earn a comfortable amount they care less about salary and more about what they're happy doing.

God knows what that other guy was talking about.

As far as the sick note goes, I don't understand why these people get so anal about deadlines. Surely it's better late than never, fair enough you should lose some marks but some lecturers are just ridiculous. I've definitely been in the position where I was getting zero for something whether I did it perfectly or not, because it was so late. That really doesn't make sense, it doesn't incentivise working or learning.

And I thought they cared about standards, well just because something is late doesn't mean it's of less of a standard. i do understand though that if they get too laxed students will walk all over them and it'll be a nightmare to mark but you have to reward late assignments in some way.

Better late than never.

The college is about helping students right?

conf101 · 28-05-2009 01:34PM

pisslips wrote: »

As far as the sick note goes, I don't understand why these people get so anal about deadlines. Surely it's better late than never, fair enough you should lose some marks but some lecturers are just ridiculous. I've definitely been in the position where I was getting zero for something whether I did it perfectly or not, because it was so late. That really doesn't make sense, it doesn't incentivise working or learning.

And I thought they cared about standards, well just because something is late doesn't mean it's of less of a standard. i do understand though that if they get too laxed students will walk all over them and it'll be a nightmare to mark but you have to reward late assignments in some way.

Better late than never.

So you think that working to deadlines is orrelevant then? If departments payed no attention to deadlines then everything would be complete chaos, lecturers don't set deadlines just for the fun of it!!

gra26 · 28-05-2009 05:19PM

So pisslips if you were the one to correct 2500+ assignments at the end of term because every student decided not to hand it in on time and just leave them all til the end of term you'd be delighted to do so?

LeixlipRed · 28-05-2009 05:29PM

I think what pisslips meant was that fine, have a deadline, but have a punitive scale afterwards. For example, every day you're late knock off 20% or something. Having corrected thousands upon thousands of assignments this year and over the last few years I totally disagree. It's on time or it's not. If it's late, tough luck. The bs excuses people come up with are hilarious sometimes. Some people take offence when you suggest to them that working to a deadline is part of being a student as well. That really riles me.

pisslips · 30-05-2009 11:18PM

Well i did correct 90x(however many assignments they had over 10 anyway) this year. It's fine by me if they're late so long as it's not too close to the end of the year when the lecturer wants all the grades.I mean it takes y amount of time to correct no matter what time they hand them up and I'm paid for it, so I couldn't care less when I get them really. So long as, as I said, they don't hand them up at the very end of the year.

The only reason I'd say to hand them up every week is for their own sake so that they aren't discouraged by the mountain of work they've put off. I get money to help them all understand but also get the maximum marks they can get, I'm not gonna start punishing people, what do I care? They're essentially my employers.

I don't even want excuses, i just laugh at them and say, "I couldn't care less if you hand it up or not"

castie · 31-05-2009 08:08PM

If a lecturer sets a deadline and does not punish student A for missing said deadline without permission then student B who handed in their work on time can actually appeal to the exam board for unfair practise against them.
Rare but was done by a guy in my class in UCC and he won, he had a bad assignment grade and barely passed end of year exam so failed it overall. The exam board nulled the assignment and gave 100% wait to end of year exam.

LeixlipRed · 31-05-2009 08:18PM

Deadlines are a part of life. And by not enforcing them you're introducing an imbalance into the system. For example, If I let students hand up assignments late then they could just get a complete solution from another student who comes to class or some such.Which is completely unfair. I'm not a total prick about it obviously, the majority of students who hand in assignments late to me would get away with it assuming they actually bother to give me an excuse. But I make it clear that if it happens again I wont correct it. And it never does normally.

Dept is contesting a sick note?

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