Rose Cafe with Dr. Cynthia Hill was probably the most directly beneficial Rose Cafe any of the students have experienced. Dr. Hill discussed several commonly used terms and symbols when professors grade student work.

From check marks, to striking a line through words, to really in depth comments in the margins of our notebook paper– these are things students have seen since the day we entered the educational system. It was interesting to see how differently my peers reacted to these common symbols. Many viewed a check mark as encouragement, while others saw it as relief. I can recall feelings of sheer enthusiasm from seeing a check mark on my paper in my kindergarten days, but that enthusiasm slowly faded to relief, as the frequency of question marks and crosses increased.

Now, I seemed to have a much more passive take on the comments my professor’s leave on my work. I suspect because I am in a relatively hard-science major, Computer Science, where my teachers comments have never really been very constructive. I learn the best when I compare my answers to the solutions. When I am coding for a project, I know which parts of my project run smoothly, and which don’t, so when my professor runs a unique test case, I am not surprised by his comment “Test case 4 failed.” Neither does his comment give me an constructive criticism.

However, Dr. Hill’s comments about taking the professors red marks on our papers to make future assignments better is more than important for my humanities classes. Without taking into consideration the reaction my professor had to my writing, there is no way I can succeed in the class.

All in all this Rose Cafe reiterated the importance of reading the professors comments, an idea that my coding classes had caused me to forget.