Background
I recently was enrolled in a science course where I believed that the lecturer had a really poor understanding of the material at hand. I have had some bad lecturers before but this lecturer is one of the most difficult academics I have ever dealt with.
I was warned by all the postgraduates/PHD students to not take this person's course as it was poorly taught and it was incredibly frustrating raising fundamental errors made in lectures. Eg
Me:The projector says s < t
Lecturer: No it doesn't (doesn't look at projector)
It clearly did... I wasn't the only one that noticed it
The reason why I decided to take this course is because it happened to be related to my thesis area and I had studied it and taken similar subjects before. Ultimately I just wanted an easier semester.
Anyway there came a point in the semester where I questioned a mistake made in the lecture and I said another result should have been used. The lecturer got out the result they quoted and the result I quoted in response on the projector. It was quite obvious that what they said wasn't correct but just said in response that I wasn't correct even when I quoted a reference. This prompted me to try and drop the course and use another course for credit.
Initial Complaint
Unfortunately when I tried to drop the course I was too far into the semester so my other option was to make a complaint to the department. I really needed to graduate at the end of semester so I decided to take the course in the mean time but put in minimal effort to pass as I was so frustrated with everything in the course. I made this very clear to the department.
I approached the head of the department and made a complaint about the course.
I waited well over a month to hear back from the department and the department decided to not do anything because there was insufficient evidence. I certainly understand that it is difficult for them to make a conclusion.
However they also said that my grade was probably a reflection of the educational background that I had (what they meant was because I was already familiar with the area that due to differences in ways in how it may be taught it contributed to my poor grade).
This really frustrated me. Ultimately I really regret letting my pride get in the way by not putting in any effort in the final. But at the same time I don't understand how the examples that I gave (which were the ones given above plus more) leads to that conclusion. I feel that they pretty much came up with their own conclusion as to what happened. I made a request that they should talk to the students (past and present) and see their experiences but it seems that they didn't bother at all.
What I want to achieve
I just want to remove that subject from my transcript and replace it with the other subject I have. It seems that the option that I have is to escalate this to the university and have it resolved centrally. This seems like quite a lot of effort and stress. A part of me feels like I am obligated to do this because so many of the postgraduates have had similar experiences to me. They choose not to complain to avoid awkward situations.
Another reason why I am quite reluctant is because if I was to make a complaint of this nature centrally to the university this would probably put the lecturer in quite a predicament.
I have seen similar questions posted here but ultimately what I am asking is what are some potential consequences for the lecturer assuming that my complaint is successful?
