What’s the deal with this trend of classes being structured almost entirely around exams, with basically nothing happening before the midterm?
Like, I get my syllabus and the grading breakdown is: 30% midterm, 40% final, 20% project 10% participation. Between week 1 and week 6, there’s no graded homework, no low‑stakes quizzes, no checkpoints. Then suddenly, an exam week hits and you’re supposed to magically perform at a high level on material you’ve never actually had to demonstrate you understand.
There’s no feedback to tell you you’re way off until it’s too late to fix it without tanking your grade. One bad test day and you’re cooked, because there’s nothing else in the gradebook to cushion it.
I know a lot of professors are overloaded with giant classes, multiple sections, and their own research, so grading regular homework, projects, or discussion posts for 100+ students is a massive time sink… But I can’t help but feel like 1) it wasn’t always like this and 2) it shouldn’t have to be this way…? I don’t feel as though I’ve actually internalized or learned anything other than how to study like a maniac only to forget everything within one week of the class being over. It also really sucks to not know how I’m doing FAR before the Selective Withdrawal date.