Hello my name is Jacob Derr and this is my example of poor goodwill in my life.
When I was a freshman in college, during my first semester, I was taking a class called
SOC 134. Now personally, I have never liked the topic of sociology in any way shape or form,
which may have been the lead contributor to this communication. I had just completed my first
exam for the class (about two weeks after school began) and I received a C letter grade (37/50).
I was upset at the situation, because I had studied extremely hard just to take an exam that, in
my opinion, had some questions on it that were not discussed in the course content. In
response to that, I sent the professor an email, basically undermining him. Now, I could have
showed more goodwill by not being nearly as snotty as I was. Basically, I accused the test of
having content on their that did not relate to what was being discussed. By doing that, I basically
was saying that his teaching skills were bad, and that he was not a good professor in general.
Personally, as a professor, I would want my students to think highly of me, I would want them to
know I am a good professor because it could only cause more problems down the road, and
lead to a disconnect between the professor and the students themselves. Despite me saying all
this, the professor responded and explained that everything was going to be all right. He
demonstrated the points templet for the class and told me how it would still be relatively easy for
me to achieve an A, as long as I applied myself. All in all, I should have had a more passive
approach. To better my goodwill in this email, I would have started asking questions first before
making a lot of accusations that were not necessarily true at all.
The text explains that goodwill is when someone or something wants to only invest if they
know the person on the other side of the deal cares about them. The way to explain my situation
is that I did not show goodwill to the professor when he showed goodwill to me.
The communication is pasted below.
From me:
"Good Evening Dr. Schweingruber. Kind of confused over the test. I studied super hard for a
week in advance, going over all the study questions, and reading the textbook. Yet I take the
test and somehow manage to get a C on it. I felt most of those questions were not related to the
content we discussed in class. I had multiple questions asking me a phrase you stated in class
from week one or week two. I do not understand why the test is so much different than the
review guide and study questions and I feel it is unfair to most students. My friend also scored
really low on it and he studied for almost two weeks in advance."
From the professor:
"Jacob:
A few thoughts:
Missing 13 points on the first exam is not going to keep you from getting an A in the class
because there are so many other ways to earn points. If you get 37 points on each exam (111
points total) and continue to get perfect scores on your discussion posts (150 points) (plus 10
points from the survey) that will be 271 points. That puts you 39 points from an A, which you
could earn with two course projects or one course project and four lecture essays. And,
hopefully, you will do better on the remaining exams.
I suggest that next week you visit the Help Center to go over your exam with a TA and try to
make sense of why you missed particular questions.
That said, your contention that the exam questions are not related to class content is incorrect.
For instance, you give the example of a question you missed about “a phrase you stated in
class from week one or week two.” That phrase was the course theme.
The course theme was introduced during the second day of class. It is the second bullet point
on the “What have we learned” slide that you should have studied.
I then repeated the course theme over and over in class because it is connected to most of the
course material."
Citation below:
SOC 134 Email. Outlook. (n.d.).
https://outlook.office365.com/mail/id/AAQkAGNkYTI3MzAyLWJkMzMtNDU3OS1hYjU0LTFmNz
Q3NTViNzIxNAAQAKSAAjvh54pOr68Bb6yvwcU%3D