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Should I drop this course?
I'm a full time college student taking four classes and working at night. One of the courses I chose to take this semester was American Sign Language 1 online. I was super excited about it when I first joined the class, but now I'm growing to hate it.
I didn't expect it to be easy, but it's become extremely complicated and I'm only in week 4. There are so many rules and the professor is very demanding. On our last quiz he gave us 8 minutes to explain what a signer was signing in 10 different videos. I got 7 of them before the timer ran out and he gave me an F and wouldn't let me attempt to take it again. I wrote him an email about it asking if maybe next time he could give us at least a minute per video because part of my issue was that the videos took around 5 seconds to buffer each and some signs were done very hastily and hard to see so sometimes I had to rewind to look at it again. He told me it was my fault and I needed to be better prepared. I find this unfair because I don't think the buffering issue was my fault nor do I think after barely one month of taking an intro to ASL class that we should be expected to figure out entire sentences somebody is signing when it's done so quickly and in poor lighting.
Other than that, I keep finding myself wishing I took Spanish instead because ASL is just so overly complicated and there's very little resources to go off of online and NO guidance from the professor minus grading (we just watch videos of random strangers signing and have to copy it). If it had been easier I wouldn't have minded sticking it out, but I now feel Spanish would make more sense for me considering my major is in medical and most medical jobs now require you to know Spanish and English. I know Spanish has it's own set of challenges, but I feel a spoken language will be easier to understand than a manual language. I keep trying to practice, but everything is mirrored when watching it on video and having to memorize finger spelling and signs, palm orientation, pace, glossing (the written form), and an entire new set of grammar rules is proving to be more than I signed on for especially so early on. I also hate having to record myself and upload videos for everybody to see and compare.
At this point, I've lost my confidence and interest in the course and I don't know what I was thinking.
On the other side of things, I still have a B in the course and if I drop the class I'll fall to part time status and receive a W on my transcript for withdrawing.
Should I hang in there or get out now before I waste more time?
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The W for withdrawing should have a reason for it if you can put that down. The reason should not be because the class is hard but because the teacher is not the best quality teacher. A teacher should inspired students and excite them to learn whatever it is they are studying. He sounds like a perfectionist, so maybe for advanced sign language, he'd fit, but for beginners, no. Make sure you talk to a school counselor about this and find out if the withdraw doesn't automatically put you in a bad place if there is a good reason for it. It might help if you aren't the only one complaining about him. Talk to other students from the class and ask them what they think of the teacher. Then those who have gripes, share your's with them and if they're on the same page, let them know you are putting in a complaint about the teacher that you want the office to promise to keep anonymous from the teacher so he can't retaliate. I have a sense that you will do great at sign language some day. If the school offices are no help, and the teacher doesn't improve, you may want to consider dropping it now and in the future, taking sign language again but not if he is the teacher. If there is a way to learn it elsewhere other than the school you are at, when seeking a job, it's not going to matter to the employer if you learned it somewhere other than the school you got a degree from. Interpreters find jobs faster than those who have no second language skill. There are too many who interpret for Spanish, but not as many for sign language, even if its a front desk position in a clinic or as a clerk in a company. They try to hire to have people who can cover enough different languages so they don't end up stuck if someone calls asking for their language, and a customer is lost.
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