human growth and development

I moved home 3 months before my classes start at Emory not because I wanted to leave SF yet, but because I needed to take 2 prerequisites and I couldn't work full-time and have class, too. It would have been a nightmare. So here I am in Atlanta taking organic chemistry and human growth and development at a community college.

I'm passing organic chemistry with flying colors my second time around. It's taking an appropriate amount of my time and effort. I'm passing human growth and development, too, but it has been a really frustrating experience. It's an online class and my professor is really not doing a good job.

For example, in her syllabus, it didn't give a date for the final exam- it said to check the college handbook. I checked the handbook, which did not give an exam schedule for online classes. I emailed her, asking her for the date so that I could plan my trip to CA around it. She took all week to respond to my email, and when she did respond, she simply told me she doesn't check that email address very often and gave me another one. If you're going to take the time to email, answer my question for crying outloud! So I emailed her at the new address, repeating my question and asking another question. She emailed me back and answered the new question but still didn't say when the exam was. How hard is this? It took me 3 emails to figure out when the final exam is. And mind you, I don't see her in class- email is our only way of communicating.

We're supposed to have 1 paper due each week. She has to post the topic and open the assignment online in order for us to complete it and turn it in. Last week she failed to post the week's assignment. So this week she assigned us 2 papers to catch up. Oh, and she gave us a test this week, too. It was scheduled for this week, so that's fine- no surprise there. But, in her syllabus, she said she would give us a study guide for the test. It never materialized. Today some of my classmates were posting to the class that they failed the test, that it was poorly written with irrelevant questions, and that they're stressed about passing the class. Now I know it's not just me who's annoyed.

She's been grading our assignments and posting the grade online, but without comments. I didn't make a perfect score on my first assignment and wanted to know why, so I emailed her for her comments. She emailed back telling me to call the web help people asking them to help me view her comments. When I contacted them, they said the professor has to allow students to see her comments. So really, this is a matter of her not knowing how to use the online portal. So I emailed her again, asking her to enable me to see her comments.

I just don't get this. This is an online class, but she doesn't know how to work the online system. That's a problem. I don't see her in person, yet she doesn't respond to emails in a timely manner. When she does respond, she doesn't answer my question. Is that too much to ask? She says she'll do something or we can expect something of her, and then she doesn't do it. What kind of operation is this? It really bothers me that some of my classmates are failing likely due to her irresponsibility and unprofessional way of conducting her class.

To top all of this, my book for this class got lost in the mail, so I've not read any of the chapters and borrowed a book to take the test (open book). The papers I've written so far I've not really enjoyed the topics, nor do I feel like I'm learning much from the topics. So I don't feel like I really need this class, other than it's required. Really, I'm learning more about human growth and development by babysitting 2 days a week for a 3 year old and a 3 month old. Go figure... I would have gladly skipped this class and stayed in SF longer. But I still would have had to take organic chemistry and I know that the timing of my move was ultimately what was best.