Students Sue over Difficult Class

betaray writes "Students at SMU in Houston fail class because they need to know more than point and click. Students then file lawsuit. Craziness ensues. " Getting certified to use MS applications is obviously very difficult. Can I sue over my Calc II class? Sure, it was like 3 years ago, but I still get the shakes. Maybe I can get cash for emotional stress?

Comments

Seems like legit suit

[gavinhall]

Posted by Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters:

I think a couple others have observed this, but based on the description given in the article, the suit does not seem at all illegitimate. Several things were purported in the article:

(1) The course was for certification.
(2) The school charged money for the course.
(3) The school made specific and false represenations about the prerequisites for successfully completing the course/certification.

If these features are not accurate, I take back my remarks of course. But assuming they are true, it seems like a straighforward case of false-advertising.

I'm sure the MS certification would not be overly difficult for most ./'ers, but the apparent fact is that it *was* too difficult for the students they actually recruited. Probably the school could not get as much enrollment as they wanted by appealing to those who really did have the requisite background, so the advertised more widely.

It is also important that this was not part of a general curriculum (say a CS degree, or public high school). In those cases, one could argue that the school/dept. has a right to set the curriculum as difficult as they think necessary, etc. But this was an isolated continuing-ed course for non-fulltime students. The school claimed, "any one who can point-and-click, and who pays us $X, will get this certificate". That's false... the school should pay for the claim.

Yours, Lulu...

Learn to read, folks.

[Enahs]

Just what the subject line said.

The article states that the students were told that, if they could point and click, they could handle the course. Which, of course, was a lie. The class's content has been misrepresented, and students have been tricked into *paying* for a class that was not what they thought they were signing up for.

I go to SIU (Southern Illinois University...yeah, it *is* a crappy U :O) and I would *love* to sue the department that I'm in (which is, strangely enough, journalism; I switched over from CS. Calc killed me. :^( ) Not only to counselors give false information, but the *course catalogs*, in many cases, don't match what the actual content of the class is!

This could be a landmark (and wonderful) case. This could force universities to give counselors (and course catalogs, for that matter) relevant, accurate information.

Hahaha! I'm suing the Medical school I failed!

[Enahs]

Come on.

The students were told the course would be so simple, all they'd have to do is "point and click."

I personally have had this happen to me. I once had a counselor talk me into taking a plant biology class because, as she said, "You need a biology credit and this class is *easy.*" Not only, as I found out later, did I need two other prerequisite courses (although I was never asked to drop the course), but, by the time I figured out just *how* far over my head this stuff was, I was at a point that, no matter whether or not I dropped the course, *the university was going to get my money.*

This seems to me to be rather a dishonest course of action on the part of the university, and, having talked to students from other universities, a fairly common practice: set students up to fail so they have to stick around for a couple more semesters.

I know what you're thinking: "Yeah, that's why you should make your own schedule." I was a transfer student. I was relatively unfamiliar with the university (other than it's reputation for CS in the state) and I wasn't given the option to choose my own classes since I transferred in.

What the article doesn't say is what percentage of the class failed. That would be nice to know.

All the students failed?

[craw]

Before making comments about the students being stupid, one should consider that the article states that ALL 12 students failed. This is not normal. Can anybody out there recall a class in which all the students failed?

In my Calculus II course, I got a 4 out of 40 on my 1st exam. I was extrememly depressed until the prof told us that the class median score was a zero. The mean score was a 4. By the end of course there were only 6 (out of 30) of us left. This is the worse I have ever seen.

There is something inherently wrong with a class in which all the students fail. I don't care about the point and click stuff that was mentioned. These students should never have been allowed to take this course in the first place.

Class misrepresented? Perhaps...

[BlackHawk]

The article, as written, is IMO a case in point of why the media needs an enema. The article didn't give the reader enough information to make a decision as to whether the case warrants attention, or is undeserving of its 15 minutes of fame. The article says the class was for Microsoft software.

OK, anyone want to take a stab at what the software was? If it was Microsoft Office©, then I have to say that "point and click" actually are reasonable prereqs. I'm a Novell Instructor, and I also teach HTML, so I know what kind of people we get in entry level classes. Some of them are doorknobs. But for MS Office? You could be a doorknob and still pull it off.

Now what about Visual Basic? Or NT Administration? Or IIS? Any of these classes require a more thorough understanding of computers than "point and click". But I have heard IS Managers ask some Education people, regarding NT training: "What is there to know? MS makes it point-and-click, don't they?" As I said: doorknobs.

But judging the students and their case is not advisable, nor possible even, from the scanty information we have here.