Dealing with finals faux pas
By David Molmen
Dec. 9, 2007 10:52 p.m.
When students miss finals because of an emergency hospital visit, a faulty alarm clock or a poorly scheduled flight, it is their professors they must appeal to in order to take an alternate exam.
There is no university policy for dealing with special circumstances when it comes to students missing finals, said a UCLA spokesperson. Requests to retake tests are judged on a case-by-case basis by professors.
Edward McDevitt, an economics lecturer, said he requires verification of a student’s absence through documentation, and even then it must be an appropriate reason.
“It has to be something clearly proved,” McDevitt said. “If someone is in the hospital and they can verify it, I’m not going to give them an F. If someone has too many finals on the same day, that’s not a serious reason. Anything a student anticipates is not a good excuse.”
Other teachers, however, take a different stance. Second-year English student Sheva Miran accidentally booked a flight that is scheduled to leave a day before her final, but will be allowed to take the test a day early.
“I am flying across the world,” Miran said. “I wanted to leave as early as possible as it will save a lot of money. The flight is leaving Thursday evening, and I realized the final is on Friday after I booked the flight. I talked to the professor. I had to provide him with evidence that it would cost my family a lot of money (to change flights). It was a lot of hassle, a lot of e-mails, but it worked out.”
Though Miran is taking the test early, it won’t be to her advantage.
“There is a review session on Thursday night,” she said. “It’s really integral that you go to review sessions. It’s kind of like you have to balance your needs when it comes to that. I had to make that choice. … You just have to study harder.”
Sometimes, students can’t anticipate missing finals. Third-year geography/environmental studies student Ashley Daly accidentally missed her final for Math 33A.
“I’m sort of neurotic,” Daly said. “I wrote down the final time in my planner at the beginning of the quarter and I didn’t question it. I got to the classroom and no one was there.”
Daly was one day late for her final. The rest of her class took it the previous day.
“I ran to my professor’s office and wrote him a note and left him three messages,” Daly said. “I was freaking out. He got back to me and he said he would contact the department to see what they could let him do. He called back 30 minutes later saying that they would let me make up the final.”
The main thing she was worried about was how the professor would know she was not lying and trying to cheat, Daly said.
The possibility of cheating is an obvious issue professors face when allowing students to make up finals.
“(Cheating) is another reason why I don’t like doing it,” McDevitt said. “It’s enormously costly to me to have to make up an exam and sometimes you make up a new exam and unintentionally make it harder. I never ever give a test before the regular final.”
