Thursday, May 03, 2007

When pharmacy students go bad

I assigned an extra-credit assignment in my criminology class and got back a wonderful study. A pre-pharmacy student went to class, and noticed that very few students were attending. (Apparently the students viewed the class as not too informative, above and beyond the readings).

In a self-described "mischievous mood", the student faked an attendance sheet and sent it around, as if it were from the professor. At the end of class, the student picked it up from the last student who filled it out, and the professor never knew about it.

Seventy students signed the sheet, which is fine except that there were only 42 students in the room. Apparently many of them signed up the names of their friends. The student, who knew pretty much everyone in the class, observed that no one helped out the branch-campus students, who have to commute, and that in all romantic couples with one of the partners missing, the other partner signed them up.

At least these students won't be doing essential tasks for society in a couple years, such as creating and distributing medication.

8 comments:

SARA said...

i'm guilty, i used to sign for others!

Brad Wright said...

You’re a pharmacist? I had you figured for an art student or professional photographer.

Anonymous said...

You know, I've toyed with the idea of signup sheets now and again when the monotony of checking off the list of names gets to me, but the fear of this has always stopped me. Very interesting.

SARA said...

Brad, it was one time only*smiling here* and it was in our pharmacology class- I have a degree in nursing,but now i'm chasing a second one,my passion, a BFA-painting -Photography is part of the program, hence the interest-the sisters who watched over me insisted that my education should first be "geared toward something you will be able to support yourself"...heard that as many times as the peace prayer...laughing here. Realistically,of course they were right..making a living as a painter can be difficult..(maybe they didn't want to tell me i wasn't a good painter lol )
My nursing degree wont be wasted since i eventually plan to combine the two--> mission work in a remote part of the world and paint what i see *sigh* now that would be heaven for me.

Ben Byerly said...

I knew there was a drawback to going to schools with really low student-teacher ratios. Miss class here, and the prof. asks one of your classmates to pray for you.

Brad Wright said...

I think that signup sheets are too remedial... almost insulting for college students. Part of the cool thing about college is people making choices about what to do, e.g., to go class. If students aren't showing up, that says more about the professor than the student.

Brad Wright said...

Sarah, you're going to painting after nursing? How wicked cool! I admire your willingness to step out in the arts. I've wanted to with photography for awhile, and I'm chipping away at it, but there is part of me that just can't get around the "impractical" side of it.

Brad Wright said...

Asking for prayer... ouch. Now that's an effective deterrent to skipping class.