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Student Frequently-Asked Questions - An Old Crank's Guide

This document is a set of Frequently Asked Questions that relate to etiquette, expectations, and the relationship among students, instructors, and university administration. Although this area is poorly researched, some research does show that students and instructors often have different expectations. This document attempts to make clear the expectations from one side of that equation.

Note the thoughts and preferences expressed here are mine alone, do not apply in all cases, and are not official policies of the university, school, or department.

Communication

Email and messaging

Should I email the instructor?

Emailing the instructor is a good idea if…

In all other cases, see the instructor during his/her office hours or ask for attention to your issue before, after, or during class.

What is the instructor’s email address?

Check the syllabus, or ask the instructor if it’s not there. Don’t just use the email address that Gmail recommends if the instructor has indicated a preference for a different email address. You are expected to make decisions as a human.

I’m sending an email to 2 or 3 of the instructor’s different email addresses at the same time. Is this a good idea?

No. This can be interpreted by your instructor as ‘crazy person’ behavior. If you’re not sure which email address to send to, check the syllabus and just ask the instructor if you don’t find it there.

I sent an email to the instructor, but he/she hasn’t responded. Should I forward the same email to him/her again?

No. As you might expect, instructors communicate with many people and their email inboxes can often be flooded. Talk to the instructor person if you suspect they have missed your email.

If you do forward or re-send an old message for some reason, it’s a basic courtesy to add a sentence or two at the top explaining why you have decided to re-send the same message.

How should I address the instructor, tutor, or grader in an email or message?

When in doubt, it’s never wrong to address people you don’t know well formally. Such as,

Dear [Insert Recipient's Name or Title Here],

[Insert your message here]

It is customary to add a complimentary closing to the letter, even if you dislike the person. Commonly-used closings include (in order of decreasing formality), “Respectfully”, “Sincerely”, “Kind regards”, “Best regards”, “Many thanks”, “Thanks”. For example:

Respectfully,

[Insert your name here]

This may seem overly formal to some, and it is. But it is always better to be more formal than overly casual with people you don’t know, lest they take insult. Should you become good buddies with the instructor, tutors, and graders, as you are sure to do in the future, you may then write in a more casual style for personal correspondence. But when in doubt, err on the side of formality.

I’m trying to send an attachment in an email or chat, but it isn’t working. What do I do?

Upload the attachment to a public web server, such as i6, your own web server, or an online file hosting service such as Box, Dropbox, or Google Drive. Then include the link to the file in your message.

Please make sure to verify that the link you are about to send works before sending.

Assignments

Submitting

What’s the late policy for assignments?

Check the syllabus.

Can I get an extension on this assignment?

Check the syllabus for information about requesting extensions. If there is no such information on the syllabus, speak with the instructor.

How do I submit assignments?

Check the syllabus for information regarding submitting assignments. If there is no such information on the syllabus, speak with the instructor.

You claim I didn’t submit my assignment, but I did. Should I send you a screenshot of my submission?

Sending a screenshot is proof of nothing except, perhaps, a lack of critical thinking and lack of ability in image editing software.

Grading

Why haven’t I received my grade for the assignment yet?

It probably hasn’t been graded yet. Stay calm. Raise any concerns with the instructor.

The grade I received is wrong. Should i email the instructor?

See above for email etiquette.

Only one line of code was incorrect in my assignment. Why did you take off so many points?

We do not award points in proportion with how many lines of code have been written correctly. We deduct according to whether the assignment meets the stated requirements or not. Well-written code usually contains fewer lines than poorly-written code.

I spent a lot of time and effort on this work. Can’t I get some credit for that?

No. In most science and engineering disciplines, grades are not scaled according to how much effort or time a student spends working on them. All students are expected to achieve the same level of mastery over the material, regardless of how much effort that requires of them.

Nevertheless, as an aside, it is interesting to examine why you would think to ask for such a system where students are rewarded for effort. What would education be like were students rewarded for their effort (if it were possible to measure such things) rather than for displaying a mastery of intellectual material. This is not how most institutions of learning, such as ours, generally work, although there are certainly those who advocate for movement towards this.

For example, the College Board, the organization that oversees the SAT college placement tests in the US once created an admissions tool called “Landscape” that helped college admissions officers understand the level of adversity faced by each applicant. The tool compiled statistics about overall performance levels of the schools the applicant has attended, crime and poverty rates in neighborhoods in which the applicant has lived, etc. This was intended to help give admissions officers more context and a sense of the candidate’s resilience and effort when considering the standardized test scores achieved by the applicant. Landscape was discontinued in late 2025.

Copying

What happens if I copy someone else’s work and submit it as my own?

The university has strict policies on academic integrity and plagiarism. When in doubt, follow those guidelines. Plagiarism is especially easy to catch in computer courses. Usually, you will receive a warning and a zero for any work that is copied, regardless of whether you did the copying or whether someone else copied your work, or even if you both copied from the same source. On subsequent occurrences you will fail the course and possibly have the issue marked on your permanent transcript. For extreme cases, you may be expelled from the university.

What about copying from online sources or Generative AI sources?

From an academic integrity perspective, copying from an algorithm, software product, or online service is the same as copying from another human. The work is not yours and you must not misrepresent it as yours.

Exams

What is going to be on the exam?

This is one of the most common questions, and one of the questions that instructors like least. But the instructor’s pleasure should not be your main concern.

A course typically involves lectures, instructor’s notes, readings, assignments, and possibly quizzes. These are the materials of any course prepared by the instructor which are intended to be useful to students in understanding concepts and practices. Exams are designed to test students’ understanding of these same concepts and practices. This is self-evident.

So why do you think courses include these resources, and what besides the concepts and practices therein did you think was going to be on the exam?! Lectures and instructor’s notes are usually a good guide to what they find most interesting and helpful to you. Reading and assignments are meant to force students to spend time outside of class mastering those same concepts.

It is hard to imagine a student who is interested in the course who also does not know what concepts and practices have been discussed, noted, read, and assigned. So if you ask this question, it might convey a complete disinterest in all the materials that have been prepared and presented to you or a misunderstanding of how a courses are designed.

There are, of course, some cases where particular topics covered in the classroom, notes, assignments, and/or readings will not be tested on a given exam. Instructors will invariably tell their students such things in advance.

How should I study?

Everyone has their own style and way of learning. The following is a general study plan that is probably pretty good for most people but probably not perfect for anyone.

Come to class

Plan to spend significant time alone doing work for the course

Don’t move ahead until you’ve covered your behind:

Come to class and pay attention:

Review anything and everything:

I haven’t reviewed my exam yet, but I know I did badly. Can we meet?

Any discussion about your exam is premature and probably not an efficient use of time until it has been graded and you have had time to review your mistakes. Please be methodical in your approach to the course… there are few events in a course that are truly urgent.

I just received my exam score and I’m freaking out… should I write to the instructor immediately right now?

No. Thoroughly review your exam. Take some time to think about it and try to understand what you did correctly or incorrectly. Then see the instructor if you would like to talk.

I did badly on the exam. Is there anything I can do to fix my grade?

Not unless the instructor announces any special arrangement to the entire class. Try to do better next time. Please do not ask for special treatment - that would be unfair to others.

I studied really hard for the exam. Shouldn’t I get some credit for that?

See the answer to the question about grading based on effort.

I did badly on the exam. How can I do better next time?

Try to improve your study habits

I missed the exam, when is the make-up exam?

There is no make-up exam. You will probably not do well in the course. Talk to the instructor in person.

Grading

What’s the grading policy?

Check the syllabus.

What’s the late assignment policy?

Check the syllabus.

I’m going to fail the course. What should I do?

Drop or otherwise withdraw from the course if you still can. Nobody wants you to fail this course. Talk to the instructor in person if that is not a possibility.

I’m pretty sure I just failed the course. What should I do?

There’s nothing we can do at this point. Usually, unless they are of the rare unsympathetic instructor type or they have made a very grave mistake, your instructor will have already been lenient with you to try to help you prevent this, regardless of whether they explicitly have told you so or not. Take this as a lesson, and try not to do this again with another course. Take everything in perspective - university is just one small part of your hopefully long and healthy life full of interesting experiences.

In-class etiquette

Taking photos, videos, and audio recordings

Can I record lectures?

Not without permission from the lecturer. You may be violating copyright law, as well as being impolite to your instructor and fellow students.

As you have probably noticed from people taking selfies from what they perceive to be flattering camera angles with uncharacteristically large grins on their faces, and from politicians who often make promises with intentionally ambiguous or meaningless words, people behave differently in environments where their words, appearance, and behavior are being recorded. This might create a restriction on others’ free speech, their right to privacy, and ruins an otherwise comfortable learning environment - it creates the opposite of what a classroom is intended to be.

So leave and take a selfie outside the classroom if you must, but do not take photos, video, or audio recordings in a classroom or someone’s office without explicit permission of all involved.

Can I take a photo of the screen during lecture?

Not without permission from the lecturer. You may be violating copyright law, in addition to being awfully impolite to your instructor and fellow students. See above.

Equipment

I have poor eyesight. Should bring my corrective eyewear to class

Yes. What kind of question is this?!

Is it a good idea to use my computer in class?

Not unless you have been instructed to do so by the instructor. Why would you come to a classroom if you were planning to stare at your computer the whole time? You might as well watch a video.

Should I look at my phone during class?

A phone is a small computer. See above

Notes

Should I write notes during class?

Use your discretion. If the instructor has already written the notes you are intending to write, then yours may seem redundant. But many people find writing some notes to be helpful in remembering and organizing thoughts.

Should I write notes on paper, rather than on my computer?

Yes. It is yet to be proven that computers assist learning.

Attendance

Should I come to class?

Probably. Anecdotally, it seems that students who come to class generally do better in courses. Also, university education is very time consuming and expensive for most students - if you’re not interested in class, perhaps consider doing something else that does interest you with that time and money.

I skipped class. What did I miss?

If you want to know what is covered in class, come to class! Otherwise, it is up to you to follow the course material on your own. Usually, the readings and lecture notes are readily available for you to peruse.

If you have good discipline, maybe you can do well by just reading those… but maybe not. Maybe other students will tell you what you missed… but maybe not. People who come to class tend to do better.

It is generally considered from impolite to rude to ask a instructor what you missed after you skip class, unless your absence has a very good justification (see below).

I am suffering a serious medical emergency. Should I come to class?

No! Your health is not worth risking for anything. Please get medical help and contact your instructor whenever you can do so comfortably. We will do our best to support you whenever you are ready to return to class.

What happens if I miss class because of a religious holiday?

We observe NYU’s Calendar Policy on Religious Holidays. Speak to the instructor, preferably in advance.

Food

Should I eat food during class?

Sure, just don’t do it in the classroom. Leave.

Should I chew gum during class?

No.

Should I drink a beverage during class?

Probably not. But it may be ok if you do it quietly, if you must.

Seating

I was up all last night. Should I doze off in class?

No. This has been tried before, and is generally considered poor etiquette. If you insist on staying in the classroom, move to the back.

Textbook

The textbook is expensive. Should I buy it?

Yes. If the course requires a textbook, acquire the textbook unless the instructor says otherwise. University education is expensive. The total cost of all textbooks is a minuscule fraction of that overall cost.

Many instructors believe that textbook pricing is a bit of a scam. But a good textbook can be invaluable.

Should I do the assigned readings?

Yes. Why do you think we assign them?

I found an older copy of the textbook for cheap. Is that ok?

Probably yes. Check with the instructor. Page numbers, chapters, and exercises may have changed slightly. So be sure you do the correct reading for your version.

I found a copy of the book for free online. Should I download it?

If it is legal, then feel free. There are many reasons not to download illegally copied works, including:

Virtue and happiness

All of the information in this course is available online. Isn’t this course a waste of time?

It’s true, virtually all the information you’re likely to learn from elementary school thru university is readily available free online. But most instructors I speak with agree that students who attend class master the material more thoroughly. Why is this? We don’t know. Some hypotheses:

References

This document has been inspired and influenced by personal experience teaching and interacting with students as well as the following documents: