Indescribable

I don’t go to the movies very often, but when I do, I make sure to buy a ticket in advance and get to my seat on time, even if the movie starts with a series of trailers and ads that I could easily skip.

If I were late, I would feel extremely awkward trying to step over people’s legs in a dark theater. Yet that is exactly what keeps happening in lecture halls.

As an instructor, I’ve gotten used to it by now. I try to get students to fill the lecture hall from the middle outward, with varying degrees of success.

In a movie theater, no latecomer would dream of asking at the ticket counter whether the movie could be restarted because they still need to buy a ticket. Nor would they ask a staff member to fill them in on what has happened so far so they can join halfway through. Yet students increasingly expect professors to do just that.

Over the past few weeks, colleagues in my research group have once again received several emails from students asking, for various reasons, whether a professor could adjust a course schedule to accommodate their personal circumstances.

The gradual implementation of the strict separation between bachelor’s and master’s programs means that every year, students find themselves unable to register for master’s courses (or forget to do so on time), only to register for the exams later. As a result, they cannot access the course materials on Canvas and ask the instructor to arrange individual access for them.

Vacation periods also often cause problems, because students would rather travel outside peak season, when prices are lower, and brazenly ask us to take their plans into account. Indescribable.

The scale of TU/e, its degree programs, and even individual courses simply does not allow for this kind of individualized accommodation. It’s just like going to the movies: if you arrive far too late or don’t have a ticket, you can’t get in. You’ll have to buy a new ticket for the next screening.

Boudewijn van Dongen is a full professor of Process Analytics at TU/e. The views expressed in this column are his own.

This column was translated using AI-assisted tools and reviewed by the author and an editor.