Make a good impression while you are a student
Many of the issues that affect the quality of the reference you will get depend on how you govern yourself over the course of your studies, and by the time you ask for the reference, your reputation with that professor may not be, shall we say, ideal for the purpose of getting a “good” reference. Some students seem to be oblivious as they diminish, bit by bit, the reputation they will need later when it is time to ask the professor for a reference. Being conscious of your actions as a student will help you later.
I have good marks. Isn’t that a “good impression”?
By cultivating a good impression, I don’t mean that a professor will give a better reference to a student who is unctuous or fawning. I mean do not be a student who reads the word “unctuous” in the course notes and asks the professor what it means. A student who looks the word up in the dictionary or already knows the word will get a better reference.
In a word, what creates a good impression?
- Be reliable.
- Make sure your questions are good ones.
- Be about learning.
Be reliable.
The surest way to get an unfavourable reference is to let a professor down, yet year after year, students seek out special attention and fail to deliver, often without warning.
- Ensure that promised work-study products are done on time and are accurate and you express confidence in yourself.
- Check your own work: do not make sloppy mistakes.
- Represent your capabilities and qualities accurately and promptly correct any incorrect impressions.
- Show up when you have promised to help as a volunteer at an academic workshop.
- Follow through to attend an interview or meeting that the professor set up as a favour to you.
If you created more work for the professor, or embarrassed him or her, getting a good reference will depend on that being a complete fluke within a pattern of overall exceptional reliability and quality of your work.
But I was having problems at the time. I didn’t mean to be unreliable. It just happened.
Imagine that you were relying on a person to be somewhere at a certain time or to do something they professed the ability to do and had agreed to do by a certain deadline. The person or the work-product are nowhere to be seen. Try these excuses on for size and see how convincing you find them.
- I was sick/hung over.
- I was called in to work extra hours at my (other) job and I needed the money to pay for my car/apartment 10km away from my parents/ski trip, etc.
- I had to do a household chore for my mom.
- My girlfriend/boyfriend/coach dumped me.
- My dog/uncle/computer died.
- My roommate/neighbour/little sister kept me awake/turned off my alarm clock/became depressed and I had to stay home with him/her.
- I started to do it but I decided that I was probably not doing it right, so I stopped.
- My course load was too heavy.
- I was sad about my marks.
Bottom line: Excuses do not really help your case, and can actually make you seem weaker because they call your problem-solving skills into doubt. Everyone has their challenges. Both grad schools and employers are looking for people who have their challenges under control. Get your situation under control, make amends if appropriate, and repair your reputation by delivering, not by explanation, so that the professor’s most recent impression of you is with your situation under control. If you truly repair your reputation and show you do have it under control, it won’t be an issue.
Make sure your questions are good ones.
Think about these examples. What kind of a impression do these make?
- A student made a habit of asking for numerous clarifications of the course requirements and due dates that were already written in the course outline. My reaction: the course outlines took an entire day to write and edit and the student did not even read it?
- A student would often ask the professor to tutor her on skills that prerequisites or support services are there to provide. Another student would need those skills and not ask the professor but would just go without those skills. What would you tell him? You would probably say, “Go and get the skills!”
- During a test, a student was tackling a question designed to test whether students understood concept X. Although the test was a silent test, and no questions at all were supposed to be asked, the student asked me to clarify the question, specifically what did the term “concept X” mean. I can’t answer that without giving away the test answer. With better judgement, the student would have figured that on any given question, several students simply answer any given question incorrectly, and the question is only worth one point. Why draw attention to the fact that she did not know the concept, and disrespect the rules of the test?
- A student emails to ask some career-related questions about something he has read on the website of company XYZ. The questions have shown some initiative so the professor gives him a few names at the company, knowing that all the contact information at that firm are easily located on the same website. The student emails back with thanks, and the question “do you have an email address for Joe Blow?” Does the initial positive impression not almost entirely deflate?
- You have undoubtedly been in a class where a student will pipe up and ask a question to which the answer is essentially a paraphrase of what the professor has just been explaining over the last five minutes. What type of a reference would you give that classmate?
As the classmates of the last student would agree, there is such a thing as a stupid question.
Is it really fair that one little thing could affect my future references?
The fact is that these are rarely one-time slips. The students seem to be unaware of the impression they are making. If being a little blunt saves someone from making a bad impression, it is worth it.
By all means, have a dialogue with professors. Ask questions to clarify theoretical principles or to check that you understand how they apply. Challenge what you are learning and do ask questions. but make sure your questions make a good impression.
Be about learning.
The best way not to shoot yourself in the foot with your questions is to “be about learning”. Try this barometer: is your question motivated by the desire to make the course easier for yourself, or more challenging? Does it come across as motivated by a desire to lighten your load? Looking for the easy way out never makes a good impression.
Every year, even though professors are not required to do so, and often at their own expense, they read articles and give up lunch hours or whole days to attend educational sessions on how to teach more effectively. Each term, they spend hours updating materials and finding illustrations and examples, and conceiving exercises students can use to arrive at a more tangible understanding of course concepts. These unmarked steps, exercises and activities are not only ways to help you understand the course, but are often a good way to getting better marks on the tests and marked assignments. So how do these examples come across?
- A student asks, “do we have to do X by date Y?” or “do we lose points if we submit only A and not B by date C?”) He is telling me he does not care about the learning, just the points.
- A student retrieves a model spreadsheet from the course web page to analyse data from an experiment with seven complex data points. She announces to her teammates, “the spreadsheet had only spaces for six data points, so I only put six of them in, to save work.” If the assignment called for analysing “your data”, this group would actually lose points as well as my respect.
- A student is deliberating which of two possible assignment topics to choose. He asks my opinion, mentioning that he is leaning toward topic ABC because it seems to be less work than topic XYZ.
- A student frequently asks me to check her work to ensure she is on track for full marks. She never asks for more challenges or seems interested in the subject itself, just the marks. To me, it comes across as lacking in initiative or self-confidence or both, and as though she doesn’t value the knowledge for its own sake.
These students may not lose any marks, but their references would not be “good”. You will get a better reference with a genuine B than an A earned by mechanically following the marking scheme (or cheating!) Employers rarely know let alone care about your GPA. Grad schools put more weight on GPA, but that is redeemable to some extent by references that reinforce other evidence of demonstrated initiative and all-round talent.
