Oliver ClothesoffDear Reader: This article appears as part of Student Life’s annual April Fool’s issue. Please don’t think anything in it is true. It’s all made up.
When freshman Lindsay Slutszky saw the D at the top of her Physics 112 exam, she reacted like many Washington University students do.
“I went into the bathroom in Crow Hall and cried for an hour,” said Slutszky. “Then I ate three cups of fro-yo and called my parents.”
Slutszky said she then came to her senses and contacted her professor to see what she could do about raising her grade.
“I told him I was willing to do anything,” said Slutszky. “Absolutely anything.”
Professor Rodney Cox, she said, was surprisingly accommodating. Slutszky would simply need to take a make-up exam in Cox’s office consisting of two sections: oral and free response.
When she checked her grades on WebSTAC during winter break, however, Slutszky was shocked to learn that she had failed the class despite her extra efforts. She is now appealing to Edward Macias, Dean of Arts & Sciences, for review.
“It’s heartbreaking because I felt I had come prepared and performed well,” said Slutszky. “I mean, half the male physics majors had offered to help me study, I pulled all-night group study sessions with the guys from TKE, and I practiced the oral section with my TA for hours beforehand.”
Cox insisted on the fairness of Slutszky’s final grade, given her performance on the make-up exam. The exam began with a brief oral section involving two small masses attached to one rigid rod, continued with free response questions involving Friction and Collisions, and climaxed with a focus on Fluids in Motion.
“Ms. Slutszky performed well on the oral portion of the exam,” said Cox. “But that can be said of many of my female students. Where she failed to distinguish herself was in the free response portion.”
Slutszky’s problem, Macias said, is a common one among many first-semester freshmen. He looks forward to helping Slutszky to achieve a better grade in the class and to raise her self-esteem.
“Washington University recruits the best and the brightest,” said Macias. “What students don’t realize is that, while they may be at the top of their classes in high school, they will undoubtedly encounter students with much more experience at such a prestigious university, students that are willing to truly exert themselves for an A, to literally do anything that’s necessary. And we’d like them to know that we have a distinguished faculty willing to help them do just that.”