Through a long, tedious college career, my biggest beef to all the departments is the lack of communication between the teachers who teach the same class, but different sections. Why is it that there is so much differentiation? My violin story is that of Music 220. I am a 3.3/4.0 senior who is studying his butt off to get a B in this section. A lonely B which will reduce my GPA because of this teacher who wants to make his section a killer. A class in which my little sister, who took it with another teacher and got an A, is laughing at me struggling. We have five exams, mandatory attendance, and need to know the book as well as the lecture material through and through. Other students of other sections laugh. I’ll be lucky to get a B. This although is not the first time this has happened. Many of the general education classes at NIU are this way. Finding the easy section is like throwing a dart while blindfolded. Of course teachers will say in response to this “the purpose of having sections taught by different teachers is to get a well-rounded education, and some teachers are just harder than others.” It’s a funny response though, if you consider the student’s standpoint. On our transcripts there is no column for the teacher you had, or how hard he/she was, or even for the section you took. The employer won’t be able to say, “whoa, you had Dr. So and so and you got a C, that’s great!” (Believe it or not employers are looking at our transcripts these days!) It’s impossible to predict many times who you will have, considering the teachers can’t make up their minds about who teaches which section before class schedules are published. This results in a teacher by the name of “Staff” teaching every section. Who is this magical teacher? Maybe Dr. Staff should get together with all the teachers of the class, just for a couple of hours, and formulate a common curriculum for all the sections.

ROBERT PELL

Senior

Geology