text:
How do I apologize to a lecturer who told me not to ever call him again?
I recently sent a message to a lecturer concerning an issue I have. I asked him to advise me as he is not a lecturer in my department. We scheduled a call and during the call he said I was rude and lack phone etiquette and then he dropped the call. I called back to apologize but he told me not to ever call him again and blocked me on WhatsApp and on Facebook. I sent him an apology message in form of a text message. I really want to know if the apology message is enough.
Thanks to everyone who has given a reply… I will like to give more perspective
I saw my results some days back and it was a good result but I got a C in one of my courses and I was expecting an A but I am currently on internship so I am not on campus ground and I can not go and see the lecturer in charge of the course physically
I was confused on what to do and so that is why I message him on Facebook, he gave me his WhatsApp number… schedule a call with me and called me himself
During the call he asked me why I think I should have an A… I guess he was still trying to say something and I started talking and he immediately rebuked me and I was silent… when he went silent I then asked him if I can talk now and he just hanged up
To be sincere I was very confused on what happened and that was why I called him back and immediately he picked… he told me not to call him or reach out to him again if I don’t want issues with him and ask me to drop the call which I did….
After this I wrote a message apologizing sincerely and that was when I discovered he has blocked me both on WhatsApp and on Facebook…. I eventually have to send him a text message with another number of mine because I am Nigerian and respect for older people is a big deal here
I will not excuse my self as I knew I displayed bad phone etiquette but I really don’t understand him blocking me… I have been playing the events in my head and I do not think I did anything that a simple apology will not suffice for….
I really regret ever asking him for help… Most lecturers here are not approachable and the only reason why I messaged him was because of his constant post on Facebook about academics and all…
I really feel terrible about everything

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What exactly did you apologise for? Surely you did not send them a message apologising for messaging them.

If you're asking about etiquette, you should really tell us the routes by which you contacted the prof.  When you first sent the message to the lecturer, was it by routes specified for contact?

blocked me on WhatsApp and on Facebook I would argue that these are not appropriate channels for professional communication. In the future keep it to official channels sanctioned by the institute such as institute email, teams or office hours. Your institute should have a council service for student/academic staff relations if it is deemed serious enough.

@fdcpp I have learned that in some cultures, it's fairly normal to use WhatsApp between students and instructors. Not sure about Facebook.

@AzorAhai-him-: out of curiosity, which culture? Like certain fields, or certain countries?

@cag51 From conversations here and on Reddit, it seems to be a developing country thing. Which is easy to understand, if access to LMSes or a post-email culture might not have the same norms about emailing/texting.

I’m really confused: are you in their class (I assume then they’re at a different institution or in a different department), or did you cold contact someone with whom you have no affiliation? The answer will help us understand what’s going on here. If the former it sounds like the professor severely overreacted if you conveyed events accurately. If the latter, it sounds like their reaction could in part be b/c your contacting them in the first place was out of line.

@fdccp Whatsapp is absolutely used for professional communication world-wide. Should it be? I don't think so. But it is.

It baffles me somewhat that we've left this open. It's just not an academia question.

I've retagged this africa; I think that's a key part of this question. Unfortunately, very few of our "regulars" are from Africa (most are US/Europe), so you'll have to bear the cultural differences in mind.

"Can I talk now?" - I understand why you said that, namely to make sure you do not interrupt. However, the way it comes across is the following: You let the other person "let out their steam" and wait for them to finish, then say "Can I talk now?" - this sounds as if you did not listen, and just waited to make your point. Even while not intended, it can come across as very rude, namely as only interested in what you have to say. WhatsApp and the like are particularly tricky to navigate because of the significant synchronization delays which makes speaking over each other more likely than phone

"I eventually have to send him a text message with another number of mine" DON'T. That could be considered as harassment.

If you need some catharsis, leave a negative review on something like RateMyProfessors (also good place to check out their reputation there). No only is it a good place to vent, it warns others about their behaviour.

Whatsapp calls sometimes have a bit of lag (delay) - it's fairly common on such a call to hear what the other person has said a second or two after they've said it, especially if one of them is on a slow internet connection.  The result is people sound like they're interrupting each other. That might explain the "I guess he was trying to say something and I started talking". The lecturer might have been used to using Whatsapp within a campus (fast local connections, no lag) and misinterpreted your lag as rudeness.

@Parrotmaster don't get me wrong, the criticism for using a social media channel is levied at the academic, especially with the new information that they had graded student work. The academic has no right to block a student asking for grading clarification. If the academic felt the student's behaviour broke some code of conduct then that is a matter for the institute, not something the academic deals with by themselves. Regardless of its commonness in other cultures, using a social media channel for official communication is objectively bad practice. Commonplace is not a synonym of good

"I guess he was still trying to say something and I started talking and he immediately rebuked me" was that the first time you had interrupted them?

Don't. Bridge is burned.  Move on.

he told me not to ever call him again and blocked me on WhatsApp and on Facebook

This is an extremely clear sign that you should not try to contact this person again, and yet...

I sent him an apology message in form of a text message

This is also a breach of etiquette in this situation. When someone blocks you from contacting them through multiple avenues you should not take this as an invitation to try to find a loophole to contact them through. They are not challenging you to exhaust the list of possible communication venues and find a loophole in the instructions, they are telling you not to contact them.

I asked him to advise me as he is not a lecturer in my department….

It sounds like this person is not currently responsible for you in any way. Things might be different and you are required to interact with this person (for example, if they were teaching a class that you are taking). In that case, you may need to follow up through a third party to find out how to proceed. In your case, this is not necessary.
Overall, the lecturers' response sounds pretty extreme to me. It's possible that's because they've overreacted, or it's possible that you've been quite extremely out of line. Given your borderline-stalking attempts to contact them after being blocked, I'm encouraged to think in fact you may have been extremely out of line. If that's the case and you didn't realize it at the time, you really need to go over your conversation with someone else that you trust to find out what you've done wrong so you can avoid doing it again in the future.
Lastly, a word about apologies: a proper apology is for the person receiving the apology, not the one giving it. You are not owed forgiveness, you are not owed a chance to apologize or to save face or to not be thought of negatively in the future; the apology is not for you. You don't get to know if your apology is enough; if it's not enough, you don't get to make it bigger and better or somehow keep escalating until you are forgiven. You were told not to contact this person. What they want from you is to not contact them. If you actually care about what they want, you should not contact them. Any further attempts to apologize are selfish behaviors.

+1, though I would emphasize the part about the lecturer’s reaction being really extreme. While OP might want to consider improving their phone manners for future, I assume they didn’t do anything wildly inappropriate, in which case the lecturer handled this very poorly, and OP shouldn’t lose too much sleep over the incident.

@cag51 There is no information whatsoever what made the lecturer go to such an extreme mode. Without that information, no clear judgement can be made who did the most egregious contribution to the present situation. But the response is right. OP has been asked not to contact the lecturer. The lecturer has no responsibility whatsoever for OP. Thus, there is no meta-reason to try keep the channels open. Good response, upvoted.

For the lecturer's response to be appropriate, OP would have to have been intentionally disrespectful, which is difficult to square with the attempt to apologize and the post here. So, I would assume with 95% confidence that the lecturer is a jerk, or at least that they handled this poorly. But either way, leaving them alone is the right (indeed, only) thing to do at this point.

If OP is not the student of the lecturer's class, then it seems the lecturer has not obligation to respond. Why the lecturer has no freedom to refuse to communicate/talk to OP? Why he is a jerk in this case, and in particular OP is rude at the beginning?

@cag51 “For the lecturer's response to be appropriate, OP would have to have been intentionally disrespectful…” Nonsense. There are an infinite number of ways to monstrously insult a person without intentionality, and as many reasons why they may be disinclined or even unable to forgive it. An example: some deep trauma may have been triggered. Another: maybe they’re a minority and the OP was casually racist/sexist/whatever. It is wildly unfair to cast judgment on the lecturer… not least because the only perspective we have on them, and what happened, is the OP’s.

Not sure we will agree. If the (hypothetical) casual racism or triggering was intentional (or could only reasonably be assumed to be intentional), then fine. But if it could reasonably be assumed to be unintentional, then the lecturer should have assumed good faith and explained why they were offended. Particularly since OP seems to be the lecturer's student, not just some rando. Saying "never contact me again" and refusing to hear an apology is such an extremely extreme reaction that most people will only do it a few times (at most) in their career. Though this may vary culturally.

the apology is not for you → BTW in French the typical expression would be je m'excuse (=~ I am excusing me, incorrect and hints at the lack of Kinderstube) or excusez moi (=~ excuse me) --- instead of the correct (and more formal) je vous présente mes excuses (=~ I am presenting you my excuses) or veuillez m'excuser (~= please do it so that you excuse me, less nice), the former having the meaning of "I give you my excuses, and you may or may not accept them").  It may be old school today, as a kid in the 80's teachers were very strict about that (at least where I lived)

+1 We are teachers of professionalism, first and foremost, through our words and attitude, also with not our own students. These events may seem huge in a student's eyes, but, on the other side, you get to see much worse things. So I would not rule out the possibility that a toxic lecturer decided that saying no damages his own public image and needed a pretext. Learn the lesson and move on.

If X tells Y never to contact them again, does Y have an obligation to follow that demand? I don't think the answer is always yes. Perhaps X is being unreasonable, or perhaps X has an obligation towards Y that requires them to be in contact. Just because it is a drastic demand, which makes it sound like Y has behaved very badly towards X, does not mean that it always has to be respected.

@toby544 “Leave me alone” should always be respected. If there is some professional or other reason why you need to interact with the person regardless, the only correct thing to do is work through another party—their supervisor, assistant, colleague, whatever, or even get some higher power involved if necessary; never just forge ahead violating their explicit request that you don’t. Whether you feel a person is being unreasonable or not never gives you the right to violate their space, especially after they’ve clearly told you not to.. No means no. No always means no.

@indi I was talking about a hypothetical situation, not myself. And it was "don't contact me," not "leave me alone." But you are right that in those cases where Y needs to interact with X, even if Y thinks X is being unreasonable, they should do it through a third party.

I suspect that your message has to be enough if you are being blocked. One of you is in the wrong here and it is impossible at a distance to judge.
But examine your own phone etiquette for hints. There may be generational differences in how one treats such things as phone calls. You may need to be more formal than you think necessary.
FWIW, you were right to apologize. However, there is something to keep in mind about "apologies". I don't know whether this applies to you or not, but others might benefit:
An apology has a form something like "I'm sorry that I offended you with my behavior". But saying "I'm sorry you were offended by my behavior" isn't an apology at all. It is actually an insult. It has become common in political discourse lately, in fact, and is termed a "nopology".

I disagree with "you were right to apologize" in the context of the text message. The first attempt at apology was acceptable; after that, OP was told not to call again and blocked through messaging services. The right action in that situation is not to find an additional, unblocked avenue of contact.

@BryanKrause, you are making assumptions. I meant it in general terms.

@BryanKrause I would argue the student does have the right to email the  lecturer through their institute email. The staff do not have the right to block communications internal to the institute, but staff will have a channel to report inappropriate behaviour. I have had to block students myself from WhatsApp, not because they are overly rude or inappropriate, but  there is a difference to contacting someone socially (i.e. social media) or professionally (i.e. .edu email). Some students just didn't "get it" even after explaining, in that case it is best to shut down social channels.

@fdcpp Email was not mentioned as one of the communication strategies used. And it's not clear that this lecturer has any responsibility for the student (such as being their instructor).

it is perfectly viable to be sorry for the effect of something, without being sorry for taking the action, as in the offended was an unintentional victim of something necessary.

@Stian, yes, of course, but it isn't an apology.

@buffy Well, dismissing an apology that is genuinely sympathetic to your situation, but not remorseful of the actions that lead there is fine, but it isn't necessarily an insult.

@Stian, it is insulting when used when an apology is required. Parse it.

@BryanKrause Email was not mentioned that's sort of why I brought it up. It easy to forget that there are options outside of the ones presented, in particular modes of communication which an institute would insist on. I think it's unlikely that an institute would approve of WhatsApp / Facebook as an official channel to communicate.

I'd say an even better form of apology would simply be along the lines of “I'm sorry for behaving as I did.”  You could mention the offence it caused as well, but that's a secondary issue; the behaviour would still have been wrong even without it.

There are several layers of issue.

I really want to know if the apology message is enough.

You have tried to apologise. Using wrong channel at the time, but anyway, you have tried. Apology was not accepted and you were asked not to contact them at all.
Case closed. You have tried, it was not accepted. Life's going on.

We scheduled a call and during the call he said I was rude and lack phone etiquette and then he dropped the call. I called back to apologize...

We have no idea what happened and what insulted them so badly. Usually people can sustain some level of rudeness and lack of etiquette. Everyone has their limits different, of course.
You have insulted them on the phone and tried to phone again. How did you arrange the call? In person or via e-mail? You should have tried that channel instead.
Another details not provided:

When did you try to apologise? 2 seconds after the drop or the other day?
When did you call them? On scheduled time or with (substantial) delay?
How was the call long? 2 minutes or one hour?
How poignant were you in describing your issue? Were you telling detailed and emotional stories about your dying granny or you tried to go to the point directly?
What was the topic anyway? Was it about you personal issue with other member of the department (You know, departments are not isolated systems, people know each other at least from meeting day-by-day)?

I called back to apologize but he told me not to ever call him again

As already mentioned; how did you phrase your apology? "I'm sorry I (may have) (said something that) insulted you." is completely different than "I'm sorry you were insulted." The first puts the blame on you, the second puts the blame on them. Also, the phrasing and voice melody may have turned honest apology into sarcastic double strike.
There may be another layer: Are you a foreign student or native speaker? (For this purpose British English and American English are foreign languages)
It may happen that you use wrong phrase(s) that you understand differently as the professor does. Jokingly, my SO was kindly asked that "jo-jo" (yeah - yeah) and "dobře, bobře" (roger - badger(*)) are definitely not accepted answers to your senior when asked to do some task. They learned the meaning from interactions within my friends and family and extrapolated that to the workplace.
"We can murder some indian tonight" has completely different meaning between friends in London and in Houston.
You may have:

Promote to the first-name policy way too early
Use inappropriate or insulting phrase
You may have used wrong word that changed the whole meaning of the sentence
Formulate your question awkwardly or insultingly
Asked question way off the scheduled topic
Your voice melody, phrasing and rhythm may have changed meanings
You may have mispronounced their name, omit or add extra title (some are picky, some may be hurt by reminding of a title they couldn't reach, who knows?)

What to do to prevent such a situation?

Ask someone neutral and who you trust to re-iterate the call. Try to reiterate yourself as close to the call as possible. Discuss their feeling about the call. If you are foreign, ask someone local.
Ask someone (native) to discuss your speech. Word chioces, rhythm, intonation.
Don't call professors. Send e-mails or visit them in person (after the e-mail, preferably, or after the lecture or within their consulting hours). Phone can transmit sound real-time only. Your body language say much more than your words.

If you do your best to find why they were insulted and yet haven't find any reason, there is still a chance, the professor was just a d***s. Chances are non-zero but quite slim I'd like to say.

There may be one another issue. Sexism, but the other way. Many female students do try to impress the lecturers by their physical traits rather than skill. With my schoolmates we were calling such attempts as "breast out". It was humiliating and insulting, especially for those who didn't need to "breast out" to pass. We kept greatest respect to teachers that teased the "breastouts" until their desperate whisper "I'll do whatever you want to pass..." "What about studying, then? Next!"
Your approach to the lecturer and, again, your voice and wording might played "the poor little fragile girl" which they have seen soo many times before and are annoyed of already. Maybe worse. Maybe they fell for such a trap and now are avoiding any similar interaction in defence.

(*) "roger, [you] beaver" is word-by-word translation. Badger keeps the rhythm, though.

This is a good typology. But OP should not send an email. They have been asked not to and have already ignored it. They should not try again. It does not matter if the prof is a piece of work or OP committed a massive gaffe. Just don't. What OP can do is to ask a friend (or some trusted staff) where they may have made a mistake. OP must be very honest on what went on during that conversation, even if uncomfortable.

The emphasis was on the learning from the mistakes. That's why the official e-mail time delay and proff-read content. If the problem really was cultural misunderstanding and OP was a bit pushy it is the way to learn.

@CaptainEmacs Deleted the e-mail part. Especially when I read the question again and it was call, apology call, apology IM.
I've added one more reason for the instant block.

the professor was just a d***s → what does d***s mean? It is not "dick", it is not "dicks", "douchebag" does not fit either. It would be easier to just lift the spoilers for the non-native speakers here :) (we may learn something new too!) EDIT: "dumbass"?

@WoJ. I didn't want to say the word directly but you are absolutely right.

@Crowley it is not sensitive professional or personal information, or a movie spoiler so I am of the opinion that it does not need any blurring :) You forced me to write dick, dicks and douchebag instead! :) EDIT: not to mention that since I could not live without the full word I was about to also propose "dickass" but I do not know if the word exists in English

I'm posting an answer because I disagree strongly with the top response and I cannot post a comment. @Bryan Krause's answer is far too harsh on the OP and also diverts into some moralising, almost blaming the OP for seeking forgiveness.
The lecturer's response was probably extreme, but without knowing more detail it is impossible to say. As your senior at the university (and also in life), he probably should have given you an explanation of why he was so bothered, unless the matter was such as to make him very uncomfortable.
On your end, while it is completely understandable (and good) to want forgiveness, you should not let it get the better of you in cases like this where the other side is clearly not interested in having that conversation. You should leave the matter alone, unless it becomes necessary for you to interact with him in the future.
Consider what might have annoyed the professor and discuss with others that you trust to see if they might have some idea. But overall I would not lose too much sleep over this.

I think it's good to tell OP not to lose sleep over this, but they also absolutely should not pursue someone who has asked them to stop contact to offer more apologies.

One thing that is mysterious in the question is that there is no hint on what made the lecturer go no-contact. While I usually am sympathetic to students' plights, unless OP is a bit more explicit about what happened, there is the nagging uncertainty that they indeed committed some very serious breach of etiquette. I would encourage OP to give an idea what happened to avoid that impression. Until then, I think Bryan Krause's response covers the angles well.

If someone says not to contact them again, then weaselling around that with an "apology" is poor behaviour.

@BryanKrause Our view on what to do in this particular situation differs very little. The reason for my answer was to make clear to the OP (who I assume is very young) that not everyone shares your rigid and unsympathetic views on the ethics of apologies, so he/she should not take them for granted and suffer more guilt as a result.

@Enforce I would not describe my post as about the ethics of apologies but rather their sincerity. A sincere apology is acknowledging a wrong to the person wronged, but many people use apologies for themselves: they want to feel less guilty or to be forgiven. Those things do not help the person who is wronged. They also don't actually help the person who is in the wrong, because they're likely to offend the person they want to save face with. So, understanding the purpose of a sincere apology is to everyone's benefit.

@BryanKrause Yes, sincerity is important, but there is no reason to assume that it is lacking here.  In general, given the offender is sincere and the offence was not too severe, the wronged person must reasonably give the offender a chance to apologise, and a failure to forgive would be a shortcoming on behalf of the wronged and not the offender. Reading your answer one would think otherwise.

@Enforce The reason to think it's not sincere is that after the other person said extremely clearly "do not contact me", OP still contacted them. That shows that they are not primarily interested in what the person they wronged feels, because they are disregarding what the other person said they wanted ("do not contact me"). Alternatively, OP does not recognize that "do not call me"+blocking on two messaging venues communicates "do not contact me". Either way, OP is wrong to pursue further contact to attempt another apology.

I have dealt with difficult profs before, sometimes you have done nothing wrong, they were in a bad mood and you were a trigger of an outburst. Happens, many people in research lack social skills, and bad-tempered people are common in any workplace.
You should not care about what that person thinks, it has to do with him  and his issues, not you. What you may care about, though, is the C you were given, but only if this will affect your career in any way.
If you need to deal with an unfair grade, I would suggest contacting the ombudsperson. Otherwise, just walk away from anyone who is being unprofessional and a jerk.


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Applying to a PhD program 12 years after completing an MS degree
I have finally found a PhD program that appeals to me based on my work history and research interests. There is a potential problem, though, in that the program wants at least one academic reference--but I graduated with my M.S. in 2008.
The head of the program indicated it would be acceptable for me to apply without any academic references, but they would prefer I have one from my thesis advisor if possible. This isn't possible, as I've tried over the years to reach out and say hello and maintain the connection, but he eventually just started ignoring my emails. The one upside is that I do work as a researcher in industry, and I have journal and industry publications, as well as speaking engagements I can point to.
Would it be better in such a scenario to go back and try to reconnect to my advisor? Or would applying in for the MS program alone be better?
Thank you for your insights!

Is there any chance you could make an "in person" visit and request?

Is there any person in contact with you former advisor, whom you could contact instead? Is there any person who is familiar with your industry job and happens to be an academic?(maybe just to check if the former advisor is alive and didn't change his email) Do you have any personal friend who is an academic? As long as the relationships are clear in the letters, you seem to have plenty of options left.

Thank you both for your responses. Visiting in person won't be possible, unfortunately.

I do know a few people in my field who have PhDs, but they didn't supervise any of my work, so I don't think they could provide an accurate assessment. I do not have a personal friend who is an academic, either. At the moment I am taking courses as a student-at-large hoping that would provide me with a connection or two for a recommendation letter, but they stated specifically that they would not accept recommendation letters from staff unless I had attended undergrad at the school (which I did not).

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Clarification on Teaching Prep definition
So my question is say you are teaching 3 Health 101 classes... one is a regular 15 week class in a classroom... one is an online section and one is an accelerated online 8 week class would this be considered 1 prep... 2 preps or even 3 preps as they are all 3 Health classes but all are somewhat different in what would need to be done and when.

There is no official definition of teaching prep.

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As a master's student, is it better to graduate late so I can get better exam scores?
I'm a master's student in Europe. I'm at the end of the third year of a master degree that should last only 2 years.
I've finished my thesis and did well on all the project related courses and on two papers, one related to the thesis, the other extra. But I had a lot of problems in doing exams,
constantly postponing them or not being able to focus adequately to make them well and score the maximum I could, like I did perfectly for the whole bachelor.
I now have still to do three exams in 10 days and I don't think I'll be able to even pass them all because of the little time there is.
What do you think could be the cause for such mismanagement, considering that I've always been an excellent student since three years ago?
Should i accept whatever mark and try to finish or should I still try to make things well, prolonging the degree for another semester?  My goal is to get a PhD and continue research. The professors seem to be satisfied with my work so far.
I can see that it's not a really specific question, I will edit it with whatever information could be useful

I moved your replies into the main post. I also took a stab at making it an actual question -- feel free to edit if that's not the question you want to ask, but the title should be an actual question (with a question mark).

Voting to close as it's highly individual. But my advice is to seek help from your institution's support team, because you are clearly having difficulties, and talk to your academic tutor or similar about what the best course is in terms of attempting exams now or waiting.

It's difficult to define a cause for this "mismanagement" because it highly depends on personal factors. As @Buffy discussed, graduate level coursework is often more challenging. I would also point out that, in Europe, MSc programs are usually less rigidly structured than their BSc counterparts, which means a lot more responsibility on your part to manage your time well. On a more personal level, especially since European MSc students tend to be older, this is also a time when a lot of other commitments can begin to crop up- such as working, starting a family etc..
One structural difference I would like to point out is that the goalposts have been moved. During your undergraduate years, being an excellent student is more rigidly defined ("do exams well and on time"). If you want to continue in research (doing a PhD), it becomes more about finding a specialisation, learning how to do research, doing research, building your academic CV - and also getting your exams done.
In my option, the current framing re:exams is a bit of a red herring. If you're about to graduate and want to do a PhD, you should have a (soft) offer for a PhD position already. You already finished your thesis and two papers: start applying for positions, and wrap up your exams in whatever timeline makes sense with starting a PhD. Assuming you want to stay in Europe, these degrees are research-based, not coursework-based: your prospective supervisors will care much more about your scientific capabilities than exam scores. You said your professors are happy with your work- tell them you want a PhD position and ask them for help. They will be able to advise you as to what positions you'd be a good fit for, as well as knowing colleagues who might be hiring.
Depending on your country, it might make sense to stay enrolled in the MSc to (for example) qualify for travel grants to show off your work to potential supervisors, and/or retain access to university facilities if you're still involved at your current lab.
Short answer: taking longer for an European MSc isn't necessarily a red flag, since this can strongly depend on life circumstances. But having slightly better grades will not necessarily help you with PhD admissions. Since you wrote that you want to find a PhD position, make that your first priority. Whether or not you should extend your MSc will probably depend more on the setup in your country (e.g. would you save on insurance and be eligible for financial support, or are you paying expensive tuition, etc...) than on eking out a slightly better grade.

What you are experiencing is fairly common, especially among "good" students who never had to work hard previously to get good grades. Something like "natural ability" carries them along - until it doesn't. Some learn to cope and change study habits. Others fall short. Sometimes those (like myself) that learn early that hard work is required may do better than those who get carried farther.
It is hard to give advice for the short term, other than to concentrate but also get enough sleep and exercise, but a counsellor is probably familiar with the syndrome and might be able to help.
Learning requires repetition and feedback. That is why professors give assignments and hopefully give more feedback than just grades on the results.
But, for the 10 days, don't try to get through by cramming and staying up nights. That isn't effective (personal experience).
Talk to one or more professors about your performance in general and on exams. If your classes are small enough they might have some insights for you.
Long term you will probably need to change how you go about learning and be more methodical about it.
And, graduating later will only help if you "up your game" in some way in the interim. A faculty member might have advice about the (new) headline question. Graduating late might cost you time and money but it isn't a necessary block to a career.


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How can I deal with a professor with an all-or-nothing grading habit?
In the exams for the course I am taking, all questions are full credit or zero. Specifically, each exam has only 3 questions (approximately 30 points each). The professor only looks at the result. So, if you have a minus sign wrong in your final answer, you get 0 points. Further, any student who does not get 30/100 on the midterm is "banned" from taking the final exam and automatically fails the course (this is a policy the professor invented himself, and only he does it). Due to this, lots of people fail this course every year.
Normally in a year it is expected 100 students take this course (this is an obligatory course), but since many people fail, there are 200+ people taking this course every year (and this is the only course like this. Most of people fail it). And he is the only professor doing this. (I think it is some kind of a mobbing.)
And he seems so much closed to communication. He denies everything and always tells that "you are not studying, this course is not that hard!" But logically it cannot be true. Because there must be "some people" studying the course.
Last year nearly 200+ people took the class, but only 50 people could manage to pass it.
And most of the students "failed" the course because of his 30/100 threshold. They were banned to take the final exam.
So how could I deal with this problem?

Clarifications:

As I know he was dismissed to give lessons for a while due his behaviors before. Many people informed his behaviors to central authorities, but nothing changed. (As I know last year some students wrote mails to authorities to inform about the situation.)
Students do not have representatives that interface with the university administration. I do not know If it is brought to department council as a big group or not but everybody in the department is "aware" of this situation for years. And some other professors condemn him during their own lectures.
I am not blaming my professor. I just explained the situation I am into and asked for suggestions. Now as majority suggested, I will study more to this course. However in my country only top 5% of high school students are admitted to engineering degree. So at least in my country, a "German system" of classes with very high failure rates does not make sense.
This is not a subject area where mistakes could have lethal consequences
The rector of the university is "friend" of this professor. So he is some sort of "untouchable". And people are scared to get stigmatized by him.
The professor is the department chair, so complaining to the department chair is not an option

Could you please edit the question to include your country?  Does your university use an open admission model (like much of Europe) or a competitive admission model (like most of the US)?  Does failing a course create significant monetary cost and/or a permanent F on the transcript, or does it only mean that the student can't progress through the major?

Tons of useful information in the comments has been integrated into the post; everything else has been moved to chat. As usual, please use the chat for all purposes other than requesting clarification or suggesting improvements to the question.

"I think it is some kind of a mobbing" Huh? Him being the only professor doing this is some kind of mobbing? Someone going against what everyone else is doing is the opposite of mobbing. And "mobbing" has negative connotations, so if you're saying that all the other professors not doing it is mobbing, that isn't consistent with your complaining about this professor.

This may be almost too obvious to be worth mentioning, but one idea you could consider is to study really really hard for this class in order to make sure you do not end up in the group of people who fail it, large though that group may be. It sounds like it’s not impossible to do well in the class, just more difficult than you are used to. A relevant idea to keep in mind is that you have control over the outcome: the belief that you can adapt your behavior to the situation and achieve a successful outcome is what is known as a growth mindset. It’s a powerful idea and very worth thinking about, both in the current context and for anything else you aim to do in the future.
That being said, it’s possible that the professor is unreasonably harsh in his grading methodology. Failing that many students by setting standards that are so high as to be nearly unattainable does not benefit either the students or the university (or future employers of those students), and results in a waste of resources and a drain on the students’ morale. Certainly preventing students from taking the final exam because of poor performance in the midterm is a rather extreme step, and contradicts much of what I know about best practices in education.
So, at the same time that you are working hard to succeed in the class, it’s completely reasonable to try to get the university to see that there is a problem and put pressure on the professor to change these policies. Some avenues that you can explore are to bring the matter up with the dean, the university ombuds person, your student union, or other types of student advocates that may be available. A local student or town newspaper or news website may also take an interest if this is an issue that affects a large number of students. If you are savvy with social media, you could drum up interest through Facebook or other social media, and attract support for your cause.
Good luck!
Edit: based on the discussion in the comments, many people seem to think my social media idea is a really bad one. I don’t completely understand their objection (the main reasoning given is the idea that social media are a “cesspit”, so it may simply reflect a dislike of social media in general and a belief that you shouldn’t use it for any purpose), but it’s possible they have a point, so keep that in mind. In any case, my suggestion is not meant to be understood as an endorsement of social media in general, only as a suggestion that social media may be useful as an advocacy/campaigning tool in a specific situation like yours.

I agree with most of this answer, except the suggestion to scandalise this using the press or to drag this into the cesspit that is "social" media. This can quickly grow out of control. And yes, I have a somewhat negative view of social media.

(1) Must point out that the claimed effects of "growth mindset" have failed large-scale replication studies (e.g.: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886917303835). (2) The idea that a news site would take up a "my professor is too hard" story is difficult to believe -- I'd like to see an instance of that ever happening (barring actual breaking of rules or malfeasance). This answer would be improved if those items were edited out.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

"It sounds like it’s not impossible to do well in the class, just more difficult than you are used to." - since this course is known to be "difficult", and half of the students in it are re-taking it, I'd expect that "study really really hard" would be a very common strategy, along with informal study groups and handing down of notes. ~75% of students still failing suggests that effort might not be the deciding factor.

@RutherRendommeleigh it sounds like you missed my point about growth mindset and believing in one’s ability to control the outcome of a situation. The opposite of a growth mindset is a fixed mindset - resigning yourself to a fixed outcome that you believe is dictated by circumstances and you are unable to change. Your comment seems like an example of such a mindset. Whether that’s a reasonable mindset to have in the context of this particular situation, people can decide for themselves.

My (finer) point is that the path to taking control of a situation starts with identifying the factors contributing to an outcome, determining what influences those and concentrating your efforts where they're most likely to make a difference. Dumb example: no matter how hard you study lottery numbers, it's not going to affect your chances of winning (if it's a fair lottery.) In OP's case, I worry that taking your advice at face value without considering that countless other students probably tried the same might lead to them fighting windmills.

Maybe that's just my personal experience, but I've observed a strong tendency of (especially young) people to believe beyond reason that they are somehow "special" and if they just try hard enough (in their limited frame of reference) they will achieve pretty much any goal, regardless of how much skill is actually involved or what their chances are, statistically. Now, I'm not saying that they're necessarily wrong, but outgrowing that mindset, acknowledging realities and mapping out a realistic path to success is usually the way to actually do it.

@RutherRendommeleigh ok, thanks for clarifying your position. For what it’s worth, I didn’t promise OP they could become an astronaut or win a Nobe prize or anything like that if they just tried hard enough. I didn’t even promise them they could pass the exam, for that matter. So I stand by what I said, but you make some reasonable points about the larger cultural trend of telling people to believe they can achieve anything they want.

There's a fine line between promoting growth mindset and engaging in victim blaming. Trump's response to getting COVID was very much  growth mindset, and it was also incredibly inappropriate, as it suggested that the people whom COVID had killed simply didn't have a positive enough attitude.

Folks: this is very much an "extended discussion." Please take it to the chat (the system doesn't allow us to move comments to chat more than once, so we'll have to start deleting if flags are raised).

The honest answer to your question "how to deal with..." is to work hard and study so you will score the required minimum 30/100 on the midterm. And then continue working hard so you learn the material well enough that you can correctly answer many questions on the final. Good luck!

Yeah, unless I'm misunderstanding the question, the bar of having to learn 30% sounds quite low.

@Džuris That depends on how the exam is designed. One can make exams so that an excellent student should score 100% or close to it. One can also make exams where anything above 50% is exceptional and 25% for a pass is reasonable although difficult. As long as the professor clearly communicates what to expect, neither approach is better or worse. If the goal is to filter out the very top students the latter approach works much better.

@quarague Great example: My year was the first to sit the Additional Maths GCSE (UK, exams sat at 16). They misjudged the difficulty curve, with the result that the A* mark (highest possible grade) was a mere 51%.

It also depends on how the professor grades. If they think they're being "tricky" to teach the students a lesson, then even a student who knows 90% of the material might score very low overall, if their answers keep getting thrown out for "gotcha" reasons.

@Džuris The bar isn't 30% as in "If you know any 30% of the material you will pass". It is 30% as in "if you know 30% of the material with 100% accuracy you will pass". That is a much harder threshold to attain. E.g. in an exam with 10 questions worth 10 marks each, in the former scenario you could score 3/10 in each question and pass. In the latter, you could score 9/10 in each question and still fail.

@Džuris The OP added some more detail about the scheme. There's three questions on the midterm, all of which are graded all-or-nothing. So making two small computational mistakes in two separate questions could make you fail. This seems unreasonable to me

I should have maybe stated explicitly that I neither condone nor criticize the professor's marking scheme by suggesting the above response. The above is simply the answer to the actual question asked (regardless of how any of us feel about the marking scheme).

@AzorAhai-him- Unless I am mistaken getting only one out of three questions right would still give you +30/100 for equally valued questions. Which translates in a pass for the stated rules. It's irrelevant for my answer, but it's a nice illustration that getting things almost right sometimes can still be entirely wrong.

@user2705196 Yes, for equally valued questions.

@AzorAhai-him- Now I am curious about the actual question values as described by the OP! They wrote approximately equal (paraphrasing), which makes me wonder whether the professor's scheme actually corresponds to students having to get at least one question entirely right to pass. Or whether it's possible to fail with one correct answer. I like to think that's a good example where small details matter, which in turn maybe what the professor wanted the OP to learn...

When I did electrical engineering (90's) this sort of scheme was pretty much the norm, except we always got partial credit for each question if it wasn't quite correct. And you could usually choose to answer any 3 of say 5 questions, and we'd normally have some idea what the questions would be about. The issue here seems more the aggressive marking - only a 25% pass rate??

@quarague: Or an exam can be All Of The Above: viz my Physics Christmas Exam first year: the class average (~90 students) was 34, with a half dozen clustered in the low to mid '80's and one nerd at 104 - just more than triple the class average. (There were 5 bonus marks, and as the Prof. remarked handing the papers back: "That 104 is a point better than I did first pass."

I think that if the university permits this sort of thing that you have little recourse.
You could complain to their superiors, of course. Perhaps you could drop the course.
If I were the department head over this person, or a dean, I'd want to have a talk with them to see how they might justify this. I think, personally, that it would be hard to justify, but it might be possible, depending on the subject matter and field. If you are studying math, for example, I don't see much possibility of a justification. But if your knowledge and behavior in your field might put other people at serious risk in some way, then there might be some argument for a very severe filter.

Thank you for your answer. I am studying Electrical Engineering and he is the head of the department sadly.

Is this a case of having too many students at the entry level and needing to cut down the numbers severely at the beginning because they are unable to provide adequate service in later courses? That sometimes happens and might lead to less-than-fair rules.

Actually this is a 3rd year course and I suppose they would rather graduate to fail people. For example he neither accepts it If you pass this course during your Erasmus exchange abroad. He allegs that those schools abroad is not adequeate enough to match "our standards"

"If you are studying math, for example, I don't see much possibility of a justification." -- Not many years ago with our standard math final exams we were required by the college President to institute pre-final filtering exams (following suit with the other university campuses; we held out the longest against it).

Am I misunderstanding the question? What's hard to justify there? Being at a 30% level seems pretty low. The policy sounds like "if you've learnt nothing in the first half, let's stop wasting our time" to me. Is that not reasonable?

-1: why would 30% be "hard to justify" in math. I would think the opposite.

@Džuris A "30%" level is as arbitrary a figure as "turn the volume up to 11" is, since we don't know what material is on his test.  The relevant point is that he fails more than half his class, year in and year out, and that strongly suggests the problem is on the teacher.  I had a professor like this in grad school, and eventually the department stepped in.

@MartinArgerami: A friend of mine had such a teacher in math. One exercise was calculation over three pages. Then, in the final line he wrote P=(3,2) instead of P(3,2) (in high school for some reason we had to write points without an equation sign). Everything else was correct. He lost 12 out of 48 exam points out of this. I think this is pretty hard to justify (the teacher's justification was "So I only have to look at the answers and no one can fire me anyway").

@user111388: that's a terrible teacher. But having high standards doesn't necessarily equal being unfair (as your friend's teacher was).

@MartinArgerami: From the user's question and comments, the teacher's "hugh standards" seem to be similar.

@user111388: it would be interesting to hear from the students who are not failing the class.

@MartinArgerami: Yes, and also from the professor and the students who fail the class. Unfortunately, this is not possible.

All of the things you have mentioned are just difficult aspects of the assessment requirements for the course.  So long as the assessment rules and standards formulated by this professor are within the scope of university assessment rules, then it is within his academic discretion to do this.  (You do not mention your university or even what country you are in so it is hard to offer a view on the likely state of the assessment rules.)
Imposing a requirement to pass a midterm exam in order to be able to sit the final exam is an unusual practice, but it is really not so different from imposing prerequisite requirements between separate courses --- in this case he is effectively splitting his course into two parts, and successful completion of the first half of the course is a prerequisite for sitting the assessment in the second half.
Many academics on this site will regard this kind of harsh assessment structure as bad practice; whilst it is not how I would structure my own assessment, I'm more agnostic about this --- I certainly don't think it is the worst thing in the world to have some courses like this impose intermediate "hurdles" which are hard for students to pass.  It is desirable to allow some variation in assessment practices to give scope for innovation, so I think it is best not to put professors on too tight a leash.  It sounds like this professor is satisfied with his assessment practices, notwithstanding the dissent expressed to him, so I see little value in trying to lobby for change.
Another thing to consider here is that some early courses in degree programs can act as a "filter" to ensure that only high-quality students proceed to the next phase of the program.  In programs where early courses are too easy, this often leads to low quality students coming into later courses without the requisite level of knowledge and prowess in the subject.  This is extremely frustrating for the lecturers of those later courses, since it is something that makes their own teaching substantially more difficult.  As someone who has been in that position, I prefer lecturers of early courses to err on the side of making their courses too hard rather than too easy, so this guy would be welcome to teach courses that feed into mine!
My recommendation would be to accept that this professor has the discretion to set the assessment for his course how he wants (presuming it is within the university rules) and that he has made a decision with knowledge that many students do not like his assessment structure.  Concentrate your efforts on studying hard and trying your best to pass the midterm and final exams.

In many universities, there are no clear assessment rules, unfortunately:(

I'm not sure I agree that that is unfortunate.  It just means that academics are given wide discretionary scope, which I think they will generally exercise very well (and often better than they would under a list of assessment rules).

I agree here. I meant unfortunately, in the context of this question and your answer.

I don't know what the topic of the course is, and making midterm success a necessary prerequisite for the final exam is questionable.
But requiring you to get only 30% of answers right seems quite generous to me. It means that of 10 tasks you are allowed to get 7 of them wrong, and still pass the exam.
In the engineering industry, anyone failing 70% of tasks would long have been fired. And in industry you have to get the final result correct. There typically is no reward for getting it half-correct. So, the all-or-nothing approach is not inherently wrong. It prepares you for "real life" (although in industry, you don't have to solve a lot of small tasks within a few hours, you typically have big, complex tasks and weeks of time).
This type of exam teaches you to double-check your results, to concentrate on quality more than quantity, and that's a very important competence. I can tell you from personal experience that the industry already has too many engineers taking quality lightly.
Having said that, I never experienced a course with a 75% failure rate myself. To me, this is an indicator that the criteria are too harsh. I can't believe that those 75% can't become successful engineers.
P.S. I'm an electrical engineer myself, holding a PhD degree.

By the comments, the prof does not ask 10 questions, but only 3. If they have length as "usual exam questions", this makes a big difference. Having three reasonably-long questions and not to allow a single mistake seems totally unreasonable for me in learning situation.

And it least in the software industry, it is totally acceptes that no one on their own gets everything right -- it is common practise that things are checked by a different person! That this does not seem to be the case in electrical engineering seems very concerning to me.

@user111388 Then I guess I got paid for 1 year doing nothing but verifying other people's drawings and tables for nothing!

@Ralf, I have gone through classes with 80-85% fail rate, with two life-time tries. So it does exist (did exist?)

The problem isn't the 30% required. The problem is the all-or-nothing grading policy with 3 questions on the midterm. Boo!

And more broadly, the problem is that only 50/200 students managed to pass the class. While that could be conceivably justified if courses with such low pass rates are considered a feature in the local educational system and the department has intentionally designed the course that way, it appears that's not the case here. This is a failure by administrators to take action to ensure students are treated fairly—they have allowed this professor to unilaterally evade any responsibility as an instructor for student success.

Or to put it another way, if a student who doesn't achieve 30/100 on the midterm is banned from the final, why should a professor who fails to teach 75% of students to a passing level not similarly face some repercussions?

What is a diode? If you did not use the word "enables" (and used, for instance, "allows") then your explanation failed. It does not matter that you correctly explained what the device does, you loose all 10 points, instead of maybe one for not using the word from my definition (which is not the same as in book A or B, where they use different words to convey the same idea). I do not find that fair. Clearly if you described a resistor instead then you get 0.

"And in industry you have to get the final result correct." - in my experience, "solve on paper, no double-checking the literature, submit without any tests or review, never look back" is not usually how it's done in industry, because it's assumed that everyone screws up once in a while.

In "real life", are you required to work in an uncomfortable room where you can't get up? Where you can't talk to anyone? Where you are forced to surrender your valuables? Where even looking the wrong way is considered suspicious? In "real life", do you have months of work wiped out by a couple of bad hours - even if you know those are bad hours and would come back to them after a rest if you had the chance to? Nothing about traditional exams reflects "real life".

@BrianDrake: What I find very frightening is that the professors who make such silly claims about "real life" are indeed working in the real life of academic research. Do they do their experiments/prove theorems in exam-like conditions, without collaborating and with "After two hours, I have to submit my results, no matter how bad they are. I am not allowed to check them after that time and give them to somebody else to read."? This surely isn't good for academia..

This is a frame challenge because it seems to me, from reading the comments, that the problem is the marking scheme, not that you are not allowed to take the final due to poor marks in the mid term.
Comments indicate that a small number of questions are asked and only the final result of the answer counts.  I assume this means calculation or math based questions.  So if you are given three questions and make a minor mistake in each one you get 0.  Getting the correct answer gives you 33%.  The only way to get above 30% if to answer at least one question perfectly, although in fact it seems that you just need to get the answer correct so errors like taking an overly complex approach wouldn't matter.
Under that grading scheme if you can't pass the midterm you are unlikely to pass the final.  The solution isn't to persuade your professor to allow you to attempt the final even though you failed the midterm but to have a more reasonable marking scheme, in which a good student won't care if they are required to pass the midterm because so long as they know the material sufficiently well to pass the final they will pass it anyway.
Pointing out that this grading scheme gives the exact same grade to someone who never even cracked a book and someone who knows the fundamentals but still makes minor mistakes stands a better chance of getting something changed.  Complaining that you have to get 30% in the midterm to be allowed take the final isn't because that is going to sound pretty reasonable to a lot of people.

Actually as you indicated too my main problem was all or nothing grading. The %30 problem is part of it but the main problem for studends is getting 0 eventhough you have solved so many parts of the problem.

Check what the stated teaching goals in the course description are.  If "doing flawless mental arithmetic" isn't in there, even if there are no strong guidelines on how exams are to be designed, this practice should be hard to defend.
Eric Nolan wrote in his answer that you can "[point] out that this grading scheme gives the exact same grade to someone who never even cracked a book and someone who knows the fundamentals but still makes minor mistakes", but this can be strengthened further:  Even if you perfectly know all course materials, if you have a non-negligible chance of introducing general arithmetic errors in the calculation, you are effectively bound to fail.  The exam as designed therefore fails to test the actual course contents, but instead tests something else.  If that something else isn't relevant or unfairly disadvantages some people, you have your point of attack.  (At least if you local laws support that - you're not stating where you are.)
So check if there's a student with something like dyscalculia or other documented disadvantages.  You should be able to make a case that this method of grading unfairly discriminates against them - especially since this is a required course, they'd effectively be unable to finish that degree.  Then, for just about any alternate grading method that's proposed, you can argue that it gives them an unfair advantage since everyone else also occasionally makes arithmetic mistakes.  And then (assuming there's at least some reasonable people involved) you should (hopefully) be able to reach the point where everyone gets the same altered grading scheme.
(This worked to improve a similarly harsh grading scheme of a prof at our university.  I don't know how much of a threat you'd need to build up in your case - from mentioning that this is discriminatory, over mentioning that someone could lawyer up, to actually hitting them with a lawyer - in our case, talking to & working with the disability advisor and letting them talk to the exam board and prof was enough.  Give it a few months though - don't expect a quick result in just a few weeks.)

The posted answers address the professors habits, but not how the student should deal with them (aside from study hard.)  It seems like the more appropriate response would be for the student to approach the tests differently based on the grading criteria.
Since the requirement appears to be that at least one of the midterm questions must be 100% correct, it would appear that the best strategy would be to read through the three questions to determine which one the student was most confident in answering correctly, and then spend as much time as necessary to answer that question without any errors.  Carefully checking each answer may not leave enough time to answer all of the questions, but should provide the best chance of getting credit for whichever questions the student has time to answer and check.

Your professor is being decidedly unreasonable. It is (from your description) neither a life threatening course nor a doctors position where you have to perform these mental gymnastics.
I too have experienced an unreasonable professor- first exam, class average 13.5. 9 and below an F. 65% of the class failed. The final was 3 hours- at the 1.5 hour mark he stood up and told everyone to turn their tests in because if they didn't know the material/solved it they weren't going to finish.
All you can do is organize and file complaints with the uni, with the other students, and lobby for the removal. But if he's an untouchable it's going to take a lot more work.
Your best bet is to pass it and realize there are complete and utter unreasonable people in positions of power. Learning to navigate that will help you in life. Sadly. Unless there is a mass threatening of refusal to take the class with severe financial repercussions for the university nothing will change for that professor.

I had a professor that did the same thing (in the 80ies), and when asked, his explanation was:
"If you become an engineer, and design a bridge, a single error in a long calculation might result in the bridge crashing, killing lots of people. Are you going to tell them 'it was just a small error'?"
His point is that in real life, a small error is often still a full fail, and you get trained for real life.
You might not agree with him, but he is not completely wrong either. Many students nowadays have forgotten that university is supposed to teach you for your work life, and a degree is supposed to confirm that you can handle its challenges, not that you can game your way through its system. It is not always easy to find the line between unfair, realistic, and useful education.
Update: for reference, you needed 25% correct to pass his exam, which had typically four to six questions, in four hours. If you knew your stuff, you could be done in one hour with 75 - 100%. So it wasn't unfeasible.

The professor’s explanation is BS. The correctness of the design of something as safety-critical as a bridge cannot rely on the assumption that a single person completed a long calculation without any errors. In reality the calculation would be broken up into many small parts, each being reviewed by multiple people, with the high-level correctness of the entire setup also being reviewed by more than one person. Basically, if the professor’s scenario were to actually happen, whoever authorized this approach to bridge design would be guilty of criminal negligence.

@Dan Romik: This argument sounds to me like the one that used to be trotted out (probably the 1980s was the decade when this was said most often) in defense of not allowing calculators on tests -- what if the batteries fail or you don't have one with you (forgot it or something; jokingly replaced with "what if you were on a desert island . . .)? Despite my relatively conservative views with calculator usage, I always thought this argument was worthless.

I would hope noone designs bridges in exam-like situation: let someone, who is new to the subject, design the bridge in 2 hours without outside help or talking to other people, checked by nobody.

More realistically, the "all or nothing" does not really teach you something useful. Yes, students should lose an appropriate number of points if they are not careful, but not all for a simple mistake. And I cannot believe that people who had this professor is class will never make mistakes in the real world (everybody makes mistake).

I highly doubt the professor was teaching something in an engineering discipline at the time.

Real life example: Coworker (accomplished chemical engineer) did some calculations for the air volume required to perform an operation. Came up with a 2.5" line at some ungodly PSI and CFM. Had another engineer check it. Confirmed. So they rented a dedicated compressor, put filters, drilled a hole in the wall, ran the line in, fired it up. It blew up all over the lab and exploded material everywhere. Calculations were wrong and no one double checked that part.
Just a fun thought.

@DanRomik What you call BS has driven the education of generations of engineers, so I'd be a bit more respectful. Recall that risks are additive: even by splitting the workflow among many designers and with safeguards in place, it's better to have well-trained engineers that could design the bridge or whatever device by themselves rather than not.

@MassimoOrtolano I’m very respectful of people who think accuracy and attention to detail are important (and I’m one of those people myself). As long as the explanation they give of why that’s the case is itself accurate and honest. The professor’s explanation quoted here is not.

@DanRomik It was certainly true many many years ago, and examples of bridges which were the design of almost a single person and which fell abound. Nowadays is less true, but the principle behind it is still valid.

@Massimo exactly, you’re confirming my point that trusting a single person’s calculations is a bad approach to bridge design, and no longer practiced. And again, like I said I agree with the general idea that students should be taught the importance of getting the details of their calculations right, but one should be able to explain to them why it’s important without resorting to BS explanations. If a professor gets the details of their explanation wrong, they are not living up to the very principle of accuracy that they’re advocating for, and they deserve to be called out on it.

@DanRomik That's an archetypal example delivered, as I said, to generations of students: each generation of students adapted the archetype to their era, and filled the details by themselves.

Except we're not discussing the standards for getting a degree, we're discussing the standards for continuing to be in a class teaching the material.

@DaveLRenfro Teachers in the 1980s: "When you graduate from school, you won't constantly have a calculator with you." People now: "I don't leave the house without a device with more computing power than the Apollo mission."

You're being cagey about the topic of this course.  I can think of plenty of real-life scenarios where 'You need to be 100% on these basics or we can't allow you to carry on' is acceptable, necessary even.  Like learning to fly an aircraft.  99% on safety basics isn't good enough. 'But I got most of the working right!' is no excuse when you make the wrong decision and the plane crashes.  You need to be 100%, in stress-free exam conditions.  Circumstances beyond your control will add the errors in the field.
OK, no-one dies over a college course. But the principle may still be valid.  Being required to get one out of three questions completely right isn't a high barrier.  There's no points for 'nearly' in real life.

But there are also no exam conditions in life..

By the way, most people (even with experience) don't get car driving 100% right. Yet there is points for 'nearly': nothing bad happens. Don't know how it is for airplane drivers. But I would really be scared if '99% correct' always means 'airplane crashes' as I cannot imagine anyone being always 100% correct.


text:
As a master's student, will a GRA or GTA position provide a greater benefit for PhD applications?
I am a Master's student with goals to pursue a PhD. I am currently a graduate research assistant (GRA), but have been offered a GTA (graduate teaching assistant) position in Machine Learning. The course in question is challenging and is probably considered more competitive/desirable than most other GTA positions.
Which is better in terms of PhD applications? Also, is it considered better to have both GTA and GRA experience? I am asking for a generalization. How would you view this on an applicants resume? Let's assume average performance in both positions.

I took a stab at editing the question, perhaps it will get reopened. I removed the part about what employers want -- that's a question for Workplace.SE (though I imagine the answer will be similar).

Though, very related / possible duplicate: Is TA-ing worth the opportunity cost (of having more time for research)?

If you're planning to go into Academia, you might want to do a GTA (Graduate Teaching Assistantship) to get teaching experience. Because a GTA means approximately 20 hours per week on teaching duties, you may find it harder to work on your thesis or dissertation as much as you want.
A GRA (Graduate Research Assistantship) will focus on research instead but you may not be working directly on your thesis research but instead on another project for which a professor has funding.
At my university (25 years ago), a GTA paid less than a GRA so that's also something to check.


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When will the GRE Subject Test resume after COVID-19?
A far as my research can find, ETS has waived rescheduling fees for taking the GRE and has canceled all test dates for all tests through September 2020. They also have an at home option for the general test. However, I am unable to find any information regarding what the future of the subject tests will be. I need to take the mathematics subject test pretty soon to make certain application deadlines, and cannot find information anywhere I have looked regarding when it will be available again.
My questions are these. When will we be able to register for the subject tests again? If this is unknown, is anything known regarding the future of the test?

Only they can answer. Very possibly they don't know themselves at this point. You can hope that things will be normal later in the year, but no one can guarantee it.

And, given that tests are delayed, one would suppose the inability to take the tests would be taken into account by the institutions you are applying to. They are all dealing with any number of exceptions to long standing rules and traditions...

You both make good points. I will try to find out more about what my institutions will be doing.

This is opinion-based until ETS announces it.

@AnonymousPhysicist I'm sorry, but I don't think you can call this question opinion-based. The question specifically includes an alternate question for the case that ETS has not announced anything, and the answer to that alternate question is objectively either yes (in which case I hope details are provided) or no. Opinions are not elicited, and opinion has nothing to do with the question statement. How can I get the question re-opened so that people can continue to post relevant information?

You should use the ETS website for information about test dates.  This isn't a good place for that.  If the information is not from ETS, it is an opinion.  If it is from ETS, why do you need to ask here?

@AnonymousPhysicist To answer your question, the fact that my own search was unsuccessful does not imply that others may not be able to find information I was not, whether it be because of more effective search techniques or other factors. The answer given below is evidence of that, being a reference to an ETS statement which I was not able to locate on my own. I maintain that the question is not opinion-based, and that the closure should be undone.

ETS has now clarified their policy -- no subject tests until April 2021 at the earliest. As stated in the comments (and at the link), test takers should contact their prospective grad schools for instructions about how to proceed given this.


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Should I write about my experience with academic bullying on PhD application personal statements?
After my M.Sc, I got involved in working on a project on relativistic astrophysics. The professor was a relatively good name in the field. Initially, he gave me papers, books to read, problems to solve, and programs to write. In theoretical relativistic astrophysics, even to start any work, students have to learn a lot of math, general relativity, and hydrodynamics beyond M.Sc.
However, when it came to start working on the actual problem, he started to deter that. His mother died and he took a leave of one month and told me to wait. After returning he started avoiding me for no reason, telling me to meet then ditching at the last moment. By that time I lost one year, and now it was clear that he wasn't interested in me anymore. I wanted to do PhD applications and asked for his recommendations at least. Even though he initially agreed but didn't give any or even reply to my emails/calls anymore.
I had worked so hard and learned most of the things on my own from different books without much help from him, always did all assignments provided by him before time, and even helped him with insights with his research works which were very novel (he published some of it with his name and other students).
I lost so much time and was so depressed about this. How should I address this in my graduate school applications? I need to account for the time somehow.

I see disinterest and negligence, but no bullying here.

From time to time he led me to believe that he was going to do work and I should stay and wasted my time. He used my ideas and published a paper with his other student and at the last moment, he texted me that I shouldn't have put all of my options in one basket. How is not that bullying?

@manupaul that is indeed bad attitude, fro negligence to malice, but not bullying. Using the right words it's important in this context, as otherwise you just sound like an angry student and not a victim.

Based on the description in the post, it doesn't seem like bullying. It seems like a very sad unfortunate situation. Clearly you were affected by it, it sucks for you too, and for him. Sorry it happened to you.

The way it impacted you mentally can be discussed with your therapist. In academic applications, don't mention it; state the facts if asked.

To be clear, I think everyone here is very sorry that you experienced what was certainly bad behavior by this professor, and everyone can agree that it has left you in a bad spot. It might feel like people are minimizing your experience, but I don't think that's what they intend. There's some quibbling over word choice and advice to keep it to yourself. I think that's out of concern for how things will work out moving forward, and not intended to diminish your negative experiences. While I agree with most of them, I just want to say I'm sorry this happened to you, and I hope things get better.

You might consider asking a different question about how to address your concern (i.e., accounting for the time).  As this question's been worded, it seems to put more focus on if it's a good idea to discuss "bullying".

Yes, nat perhaps you are right, well English is not my first language. Can you give suggestions on how to tackle the time lost and write about the whole situation in a more productive way?

@manupaul: That'd seem like a basis for a new question.  You might largely repeat a lot of what you said in this question -- the difference would be that, instead of asking about if you should discuss "bullying", you'd instead just want to ask how to address an issue like a lack-of-productivity following what happened.  (Or, it might end up already being a question that's already been asked, so it might pop up with answers.)

No, you should focus on why you're going to be a great person to take on as a PhD student.
If you characterize a past advisor as bullying you in the story you describe where it seems like their mental health was impacted by the death of a parent you will not appear to be a good student to take on.

Thank you for your response. I am not talking about writing this as the whole application but I am unsure about justifying the time loss as the professor will not give any recommendations. Just one more thing, he was finely working with his other students and he started this behavior even before his mother died or even ill. He was totally cold to me for no reason after death.

@manupaul None of that will help you in your application. PhD admissions, job applications, even friendships and romantic relationships are not about making the world "fair" or making up for what went wrong in the past through charity. If you learned anything about doing research along the way, then those are useful skills you can apply to your next position. If you didn't learn anything about doing research it doesn't matter if that's because your advisor preferred to work with other people or that you didn't do anything in the first place.

Probably you should have moved on sooner; the next best time to move on is now.

+1 @BryanKrause Also known as the "First law of holes: when you are in one, stop digging", or "Don't throw good money after bad money"

You should avoid going into these details. If you tell the story as you did above, the reviewer will immediately see (at least) two possibilities:

You were an awesome student who did everything you could have done and got shafted by a professor that reneged on his commitment, or
The professor had good reason to pull back from his work with you, for reasons that you don't realize or are intentionally not disclosing.

From a distance, it will be very hard to tell which of these is the case, and the tie goes to the professor.
Instead, you should focus on your achievements. Try to declare victory: you spent a year learning things, you contributed some ideas to a research paper, etc. To the extent that you have to address the more negative aspects (e.g., missing recommendation letter, a lack of publications), you should be very tactful -- and certainly avoid the word "bullying." For example: "I initially agreed to work with Dr. X during [time period], but unfortunately he encountered some personal and professional challenges and was effectively unable to advise me. Nonetheless, I used this time to...."

Thank you for your input. I used "bullying " to tell the story. I am aware that I can't frame statements like that. I also thought to cater to the words you mentioned, but concerned about whether professors buy that learning stuff, since I don't have anything to show for its authenticity.

You are right to be concerned about this. But, I do not see what other option you have.

If you mention it, keep it abstract and professional.
It's understandable that you want to justify what happened in your previous position, and there are many reasons to bring it up:

You may be asked why no publications came out of this time.
You may feel uncomfortable not mentioning such an impactful episode.
If you have a friendly (potential) supervisor, it may be good to let them know at some point that you've had some bad experiences with poor supervision.

This last one may sound risky, but I've been in this position (as a supervisor) and I'm very happy that the candidate told us, so we could take it into account in the way we evaluated them and after hiring, supervised them.
However, when you tell people, the tone is very important. It's unfair, perhaps, but it's very easy to come off as childish, or having misread the situation. Before you know it, you can give people the idea that you've needy, socially unintelligent or bad at reading social cues. This may be the furthest thing from the truth, but if you're being very defensive in the way you tell the story, it's very easy to come across this way.
The key is to mention it as abstractly and as professionally as possible. It's up to your new boss/supervisor to decide how much of the story they want to know. Start with something like

I worked hard, and learned a lot, but ultimately the working relationship was not productive.

or perhaps

After a while, I felt that the working relationship wasn't healthy, so I made the decision to leave. This was difficult, since I don't like to quit, but I decided it was for the best.

If the interviewer wants to know more, they can ask. In that case, make sure to to stick to the following points.

Show that you're reluctant to judge your old supervisor, but that practically, you needed to make a decision.
Show that you are capable of seeing things from their side, but ultimately you needed to choose a practical course of action.
If you really need to go into details focus on some very clear examples, that are hard to interpret any other way.
Show that you hold no grudges, and you're ready to make a fresh start.

Fundamentally, these situations happen because one party lacked emotional intelligence. Almost always, somebody created the drama, and the interviewer, once they learn about the situation needs to see that that wasn't you, and that you're very ready for a fresh start.
Finally, remember that you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. You've experienced a bad working relationship once, so you know something about what to look out for. Make sure you check the working environment, if you can and talk to people other than the interviewers, so that you don't fall into the same trap twice.

Wow, that's a great perspective. Thank you for taking the time for such a long answer. Yes, I intend to show no grudges, and I was looking for proper advice to deal with it. Yours fit it properly.                                                                                For Physics nowadays it's so hard to find great working environments with knowledgeable professors.

@manupaul " For Physics nowadays it's so hard to find great working environments with knowledgeable professors. " nowadays = for the past 120 years. By the way, even working with Feynman was also quite a bad environment, were you to be a woman ... (see here for some thinkings https://thebaffler.com/outbursts/surely-youre-a-creep-mr-feynman-mcneill )

Yes, I know the story, unfortunately, that's true. I have interacted with top professors and exchanged some ideas about certain topics. I called those understanding problematic, as I understood from reading, those professors didn't take that very well. Now a few months ago those established results were proven false by either some other theorist or in experiments. Most professors want robots as students, not the students who actually read and understand the materials.

Nope. All you would have to do is to mention why you're a good candidate and highlight how your previous research experience helped you and got you into a position to learn how to do research independently which is one of the main outcomes of a PhD.
Focus on the right reasons. The professors would want to see why you are the best candidate for your work and experience.

This is the right answer. If I see excuses, I am seeing a reason to pick someone else.

Yes I agree, thanks.I am just concerned about what to say about the time gap as I don't have anything to show for it

@manu paul. You can mention you had to take a gap year to focus on personal stuff in case it's asked.

After returning he started avoiding me for no reason

I'm no psychologist, armchair or otherwise, but just mind that withdrawal from social interactions can arise when dealing with grief. We don't know what impact the loss of his mother had on him.
As an anecdote, one of my children had a private music teacher who lost his mother. He was overwhelmed with grief and couldn't teach my child after that. Even though we were friends, he couldn't even deal with just seeing us "for fun". The past reminded him too much of the loss, in some way. You could characterize that teacher's behavior as "avoiding us for no reason" - except we did acknowledge that the reason was staring us in the face. We still long after that teacher, he was awesome, and it was heartbreaking to see him suffer.
Anecdote is not data, but it looks to me suspiciously similar in some ways to what you're dealing with. I'm not excusing anything, just hinting that people go through grief in a wide variety of ways, and there's no valid single expectation of how it'll go for someone. People also have a variety of "bonding strengths" with various members of their family. To one person a loss of a parent may be not a big deal (at least outwardly), for another it may well be the worst tragedy they had in life so far - and anything in between.

8\ujThe professor was stalling me from the beginning, I was doing my part.I asked him about not giving time in early stages. He kept on gaslighting me, saying that he would give time and I should stay. After the death ,he still worked with his other students. At last he told me that I shouldn't have put all of my eggs in ow basket. i do///////;'9


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Will research experience in chemical engineering count when applying to grad school for biomedical engineering?
I am a sophomore international student currently majoring in chemical engineering and hoping to get into graduate school for biomedical engineering sometime in the future. My university is very small and is more focused on defense rather than biomedical engineering research so the chemical engineering department is the only engineering department on campus that conducts biomedical engineering research.
Because of this and a lack of understanding of the major, I decided to major in chemical engineering. However, as I get deeper and deeper into my major, I realize I'm not very happy with it. I don't enjoy the process engineering industrial aspect of my major and realized that I want to get involved in imaging research. But none of the faculty in the engineering college at my university do this kind of research. I’m also being told that I needed to have done something like electrical engineering or mechanical engineering to get involved in imaging.
I’m afraid that if I switch majors now, the research with biomaterials that I am currently doing with a faculty member in the chemical engineering department won’t be counted as research experience for graduate school. I am also afraid of burning bridges with this faculty member in question by just switching to another engineering major. Long story short, I still want to get into a biomedical engineering PhD program, but I’m just concerned that the field that I’m currently in won’t get me into the specific field of biomedical engineering that I’m interested in in the future.
Will the research I’m doing now count as relevant experience for graduate school and positively add to my graduate school admissions?

Your research experience counts!
Specifically, you are getting experience in the process of "doing research": finding a question, reading the literature, forming hypotheses and figuring out how to test them, etc. These are important skills, even moreso than (say) knowing your way around a specific instrument's console. Admission committees also know that your local options, especially as an undergrad, are limited. I did linguistics and computer science research as an undergrad, and then applied (successfully) to neuroscience programs.
If you can do well with your current work, I think you'll be good shape for grad school. You probably do want to address this change in your personal statement by briefly mentioning how/why your motivations changed and the skills you will bring to your new program. I talked a little about I saw machine learning techniques crash and burn on language/vision tasks, and wanted to understand how people/animals did so well with such lousy "hardware". I also mentioned that my existing training would let me analyze and model large datasets, like the ones I hoped to collect.
Finally, don't forget that some of your skills are "reusable" in biomedical engineering. The development of tracers for PET/SPECT involves a lot of chemistry, ditto for flourophores for microscopy. Process experience can help when building or using high-throughput screening systems. There's also a lot of interest in developing substrates that nerves, blood vessels, etc can grow on or are compatible with certain techniques.
This is all conditioned on you remaining somewhat interested in chemical engineering and doing well in your research+coursework. If your heart isn't in it and you're likely to do badly, I would certainly switch; I just don't think it's essential.
Good luck!


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Not getting credited on a paper I worked on for a year... (undergraduate researcher)
I worked in a lab for about a year as an undergraduate researcher, and my research team recently published the paper in a huge journal, which is super exciting for the lab. However, while my PI had initially told me that I would be given co-authorship on the paper, I noticed after publication that my name had been left off the paper.
I had spent about a year on this project, where I drove everyday for an hour to and from the lab to work on this project. While I didn't contribute to any of the writing for the paper (I had offered), I worked on creating the strains that were used significantly in the project and did some bioinformatics searches for further questions to explore in the project. I had been told before that I was likely getting co-authorship, but I guess in the end, they left me off.
I didn't get any credit or acknowledgement whatsoever for my work on this project. I didn't receive any academic credit or payment for my work, and I was also not even mentioned in the acknowledgements section. I'm quite frustrated because I spent a lot of time and effort in the lab, just to not be acknowledged at all for any of my contributions. I have since left the lab, so this paper has been published a while later since I left, but I'm wondering if I should reach out to my PI to ask why I had been left out. After I left (and before the paper was published), I sent an email to my grad mentor (not my PI) to ask about whether or not I would be getting credit for my work, but I never received a response. I've also noticed the lab doesn't tend to credit their undergraduates a lot, so it's not just me to not have been credited on papers. I don't know if they just expected more from us to be able to deserve authorship? But at least an acknowledgement would have been nice...
Because of this, I was wondering, is it worth it to ask my PI why I had been left off the paper? Is there anything they can even do at this point, since the paper has been officially published? How should I go about this respectfully? I don't want to annoy my PI or ruin my relationship with him, as besides this, he has been a wonderful advocate in my career and helped me get into the lab that I'm in right now after I moved universities, so I don't know if I should give up on this and move on.

@Captain: Please avoid answering in the comments!

@Wisteria: what part of the world are you in? Also, you say that the PI "had initially told me that I would be given co-authorship" but you also say "I had been told before that I was likely getting co-authorship" -- which one is it?

I am in the United States, and the PI said that I would be very likely to be getting co-authorship, which I guess I took that to mean that I would be getting co-authorship based on his tone. However, I guess by likely, he actually meant maybe.

[Upgraded from comment, as per request]
This is very upsetting, indeed, if you have contributed far beyond your requirements.
However, if you now have someone who gives you recommendations to good labs and furthers your career, you might weigh the importance of this against getting an acknowledgment in a multi-author paper; and probably not even that, but just a half-baked explanation why you were left out.
In short, if you get good recommendations and referrals instead of an acknowledgement, at this stage of your career, you might be factually better off just letting it be.
Not that it's ok, it's not.
As a lesson learnt, it is always good practice, once it's clear that you are going to invest substantial work into something, to clarify authorship/contribution expectations ahead of time. "Likely/probably" are words indicating risk (good things are never as likely and bad things never as unlikely as promised) and you should weigh your investments against the risk.