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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Another prof here: I will pass along that I have had to turn down students who have asked for references or recommendations, particularly when they neither participated in class nor came to office hours.  When you don't really know the student beyond their performance on assignments or exams, it's impossible to write an assessment with the level of detail that some grad programs or employers want.
 
IMO, it's the average student who really benefits by using office hours.[/quote]

Office hours. I think that might have changed the trajectory of my life.

After community college where I wasn't going to office hours much (because who does that), I transferred to a SLAC where the folks in my department already had 2 years of relationship-building with professors that I had to catch up on.  So I went until the professors got to know me, and one, in particular, took me under their wing.  I was offered a job in the department that helped pay for my tuition, and I was encouraged/pushed/supported to go to graduate school.  I would not have considered graduate school at all and might have ended up in a low-paying job field that I wasn't interested in just because I needed the money.  I started off as an average student who didn't stand out at all. My professors would not have known that I was a hard-working person until they asked to see my notes and how much I studied.  I was provided opportunities that resulted in me graduating with honors. Wish I had seen what the recommendation letter looked like but surely it helped get me a full scholarship +  stipend for grad school.  I'm in my 50s now and still think about how my life would have taken a different route without that support from my professors. [/quote]

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