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Complain about professors!

C

China Rider

Bluelighter
Joined
Mar 30, 2007
Messages
11,451
some bad encounters i've had:
1. i've got a teacher who makes important announcements before the class is scheduled to start.
2. missed class for un-announced exam, who does that!
3. teachers who go out of thier way to know everyones name
4.getting test review sessions/review sheets and then 75 percent of that material isn't even on the test
5. professors who call on random people!
6. 100 level electives overwhelming with work

i've got a bunch more, but just thinking of all that got me all worked up:!
 
i don't know if i would go so far as to say that having a professor who goes out of his or her way to learn the names of their students would be something to complain about. :\
 
^^^

You're right, usually this is a good thing, but recently I have missed these classes one too many times and it's hurting me. Not the teachers fault, just a shitty situation.
 
I have an Engineering CAD class with the worst teacher ever.

Whenever he would actually come to a complicated idea he would draw it on the board instead of using the CAD program. Always going on and on about how drafting used to be 50 years ago. I learned all about different sizes of paper and drafting tables and pens and shit.

Then when he did use the CAD program it would be like, "Ok, now this at 30 degrees.." then he'd go to click in the text entry to type 30. Except he was so slow in clicking in the box that a tooltip would pop up and block his click. So, he would move the mouse away and then try again. He would do this like 3-4 times every time he needed to type something.

Oh, this one time he wanted to put text on a drawing so he used the text entry tool which is as complicated at MS Paint's text entry. He writes his text and then says, "Ok, now I need to close out this tool.." then he goes up to the title bar of the CAD program and right clicks and goes to close which quits the program. Then he stands there for like 5-10 seconds in silence then says, "See.. the program just crashed there for some reason."

I get really fucking high now before class and I just go and laugh the whole time. Everyone tells stories about this guy in our other classes and we all just laugh through his whole class.

Seriously though, I worry that he's going to go on a rampage and kill all of us one day....
 
Few years ago I took CAD for an elective and the teacher was...differnt.

We never went over the program, he never addressed the class as a whole, just sat in front of the room and flirted with girls, talked about his Harley, and talked about going to the bar with some of the Tech Ed department friends who were in the class.

All we had to do was hand in a bunch of work by the end of the semester, he doesnt even look over it, I used the someone elses drawings that had the same class and got an A. Great teacher:)
 
one time I came into class still tripping from the night before and had to teach and it was weird :D

I think I let out a really loud cartoonish sounding HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOoooOOOoooOO!

never again! :D
 
China Rider said:
6. 100 level electives overwhelming with work
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I've had pretty good experience with most of my professors so far in my college career....but this semester I'm taking history 105 (it's a non major, required course) and the quizzes are harder than most of my 300 or 400 level classes.

Every single week, she expects you to read a 20-30 page article and have all sorts of specific details memorized. It's not like dates and important people (that's easy, even if it is specific). The quizzes are all like heavy duty, analytical, and super specific....

Oh yeah, the quizzes are open book, online, with a 30 minute time limit. My gf and me sent an e-mail to the entire class, and about 80% of the students are failing open book quizzes!!! wtf! it's an open book quiz, somethings wrong when 80% of the class is failing open book quizzes. Me and my Gf are in the class together and take the quizzes together and the highest grade we've got so far is a 68%. We're not stupid, and we're spending hours upon hours reading articles for a level 105 non major class WTF!!:!

end rant...
 
^ I've found most history courses of the 100 level are like that. Both of the ones I took required an absurd amount of reading, and we had to do the same as what you're describing. If you forgot one minute little detail, your grade suffered tremendously. So glad I'm done with those courses.
 
China Rider said:
some bad encounters i've had:
1. i've got a teacher who makes important announcements before the class is scheduled to start.
2. missed class for un-announced exam, who does that!
3. teachers who go out of thier way to know everyones name
4.getting test review sessions/review sheets and then 75 percent of that material isn't even on the test
5. professors who call on random people!
6. 100 level electives overwhelming with work
Click to expand...

the 1st one is a legit gripe, but nothing to complain about. almost all my professors give important info AT THE START OF CLASS, not before it starts tho.
2- called a pop quiz
3- annoying in a class of 400 people, but I wish my professors wanted to kno my name, they just want to get undergrads in and out of the class, without being bothered during OH
4- this sucks however, at least here at UCLA, the test reviews are NEVER run by the prof., they're always done by the TF/TA. And it is a courtesy, not an all encompassing cram session. A review handout would be a different story, but you hardly ever get those except in history classes:(
5- professors calling on random people is legitimate, this is way stupid. I never do reading when I go to lecture, then again I never go to lecture cuz I'm too busy getting high but thats for OD
6- what is 100 level? is that entry level? for us, 100level is upper division (major coursework), 200 level is for PH.D students, 400 is TA/TF classes with pay

so, most of your gripes are pretty petty brah
 
Kuuyku said:
Yea, some of the lower level courses I have taken before have ranged from easy to ridiculous workload involving 24-page papers and require that you create and handout hundreds of surveys then analyze the data and create the huge paper :(
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My freshman year I took a GE class that was 3 quarters long (whole year) on the 1960s counterculture (you know, dope smoking hippies!). While I didn't have to create surveys and and analyze them (also, I don't know how hard that really is...I mean, you create a survey, 'analyze the date' aka make some charts and reference that data in ur paper), in that class each of the first two quarters we had a 18-25 page research paper at the end of the quarter and a 30-40 page one at the end of the 3rd.

unless your going to a community college i think ur 24 pg paper is pretty standard
 
Okay, I have probably half a dozen I could go off over. However, there's one in particular.

The guy's research was invaluable to the University, so they demanded he remain on their staff (even gave him tenure), despite the blatent violation of ethics and rules he practiced as a teacher.

First off, the guy CHARGED STUDENTS to attend office hours. I am not making this up! We all got 2 free consultations for the semester, and then after that we got charged the same rate as he would charge practitioners for professional consultation (a lot of money). Furthermore, he made homework questions which were rediculously vague, so it was almost like he wanted us to come to his office (or face failing).

Okay, then here is how he went about giving us grades. We had four homework assignments, worth 25% each. And attendance counted. You miss a class and you drop a percentage point. 16 weeks, 3 classes per week and 1 hour of tutorial, so go figure.

Now he would not give out question sheets with the problems on them, no. Surely not. He would just impromptively write questions on the chalkboard as he lectured. "Hmm, this is a nice theorem. Homework question #4 is to prove it. Now continuing on..." Now the shocker...

IF YOU MISSED A CLASS, AND A QUESTION WAS PRESENTED ON THAT DAY, YOU AUTOMATICALLY GOT 0 CREDIT FOR IT!!

No asking to see a friend's notes. No paying the fee to get them from his office hours. You just automatically failed it.

He explained these rules on the second lecture day of the course, as well as gave the first two homework questions for homework #1 (which had a total of 6). Guess who skipped day 2. Yep.

Add to this terrible handwriting.

Add to this extreme arrogance. The "arrogant walking encyclopedia" condition.

"You could use this model, say, to model kangaroo populations in New South Wales. Kangaroo, does anyone know the latin word for kangaroo? I forget it. I always thought it was odd, though, that it was so similar to the latin word for girraffe, which is _____. Odd, I'll have to look it up later."
 
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My general peeve with professors is when they have extremely rigid attendence policies, and do not care or account for emergencies or legitament reasons to miss class.

I had an intro bio. professor who would not let me make up a lab session after my dad had died :| I missed a week of school, meaning that I missed my wed. morning lab, and when I went to go see him about it, he said there was no way to make up a lab and I would just have to not miss anymore... wtf?? I wanted to kill him. Missing a lab was like 5% of our grade. I also had missed a test, which I had to make up in FULL ESSAY FORMAT. Geez, don't cut me a break or anything, asshole :! It's not like I skipped class to go get drunk.

I had another professor do the same thing in another bio. course after I had mono. I had legitament documentation for both of these absenses! I understand that a lab is hard to make up, but do you really think that its possible for no one to miss these? Have a back up plan. Do your fuckin job.

Professors like that just need to go jump off a fuckin bridge. Sorry, but your general education class is not the most important thing in the world so stop acting like it. I understand that college is serious, but to think that emergencies won't happen and to brush them off like it's nothing is just lazy and rude IMO.
 
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I've had the same two teachers for 2.5 years and I love them :D

But, term 4 last year they brought in a new teacher for Employment Law, and he was a former cop, and complete dickhead/idiot/braindead twat fucker. I learnt more about the police force/his family/his car/his co-workers/his wife's life and troubles with her employer ETCCCC!!! :o than i did Employment Law!!

It was so fucking aggrivating to have to listen to a fucking dumbass derail every single class. It got tired and boring and needless to say I don't think they're ever going to let him teach there again haha.
 
I don't like my current chem teacher. Basically our University removed the lower stream of Chemistry 100, and now we only have the advanced one. The teacher for that course assumes that everyone taking her course is fresh out of high school. She makes references to things that I've never even heard of and says, "I'm sure you remember that from high school chemistry." NO BITCH, I'M 28-YEARS-OLD. HIGH SCHOOL WAS A DRUG INDUCED HAZE. TEACH ME CHEMISTRY OR GTFO!

For the record, I got into Uni. based on unrelated College grades in a completely different subject. I didn't even know how to calculate sig. figs when I took the course. I couldn't even write scientific notation.

Needless to say, I worked my ass off and failed the course anyways. I'm re-taking it in September. I aced organic. I wish I could just take that.
 
I simply hated Profs that obviously weren't good at conveying information to students. It's not THAT hard to explain something eloquently if you already understand it completely. If you cannot do that you have no business teaching. Period. That's like THE ONLY thing you need to and you are a great teacher by default.

How hard is it for some prof's to clearly outline what is expected, explain each topic clearly, provide meaningful practice opportunities, and devise some form of test or essay that will demonstrate understanding of that material. That is teaching in a nutshell.

I think its wonderful if a teacher is personable, has interesting lectures, and presents material in fun and non boring ways but I'll take monotone and boring to the point of wanting to kill myself in class if it means the information is clearly organized and presented vs. complete gibber jabber chaos.

I've had some profs where the stuff that is presented has almost no baring on the examination. I've also had profs who have great outlines but then cannot for the life of them clearly explain key concepts. I've had some profs where it's like you're watching a chicken with its head cutoff the entire time and you just give up and refer to the text.

Shit there's been numerous times in my life where I've gotten so frustrated with the way in which something is being explained that I've volunteered to explain the concept to the class myself. This is stuff i don't even previously know either just that I've managed to either wade through the stream of idiocy spewing from the prof's mouth, I've deduced it on my own through logic, or I've skipped ahead in the text to simply teach it to myself while sitting there. It's not like I'm even very smart. I just think that there's smart and then there's being able to take a concept and break it down completely and then present it in such a way as others will understand it. Some profs have too much of 1 and not enough of the other.
 
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The problem is that seniority in academia comes from what you publish, rather than teaching. So long as students don't complain about you so much that it becomes impossible to keep you on as a teacher, you can be a poor teacher and continue to teach, because that's not what your promotions are based on. Increasingly, promotions are based on the sheer quantity of what you write.

Academics are also in a context of increasing job insecurity. They are on contracts which are getting shorter and shorter, there are less jobs so it is much more competitive. This makes it hard to get good quality academic work done. Recently, during a staff 'rationalisation' at the faculty I work at, everyone who had published less than five articles (or one book) in the last five years was told that their jobs were on the line. Just sheer quantity of articles, with no thought to their quality or impact on the field.

This also means that, because academics are on shorter term contracts, you will get someone who walks in to a faculty, gets handed a course to teach, and teaches it the same as it has been always taught because they don't have time to improve it, and if they do god knows if they'll even still be working there 12 months after the course is finished, so why bother when you have papers to write?

The long and short of it is that teaching suffers, because ultimately so long as you have a track record that shows you can take a course from start to finish, you can get a job. The important thing for academics is to make sure they keep writing articles (and books depending on the kind of department they're in).

This doesn't excuse bad teaching, and there are some academics who are just terrible at communicating their views to students. But it does explain why some academics, for example, teach the same course without changes for ten years, or are disengaged in their teaching overall. When your job is potentially on the line, you don't improve your teaching, you publish something. It also shows how specific, and difficult to learn, a skill teaching is. You can have a publication list as long as your arm and be an appalling lecturer.
 
I used to have this grossly overweight prof who would always have these really big sweat stains on the armpit area of his shirts and he would stink out the whole place with the smell of his BO.
 
aanallein said:
I simply hated Profs that obviously weren't good at conveying information to students. It's not THAT hard to explain something eloquently if you already understand it completely. If you cannot do that you have no business teaching. Period. That's like THE ONLY thing you need to and you are a great teacher by default.

.
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I just had a teacher like that, she was a huge bimbo. She got lost in her own words, constantly, and would always never know how to explain something so she'd give up and tell us to read it in our textbooks. After two weeks of this, it became evident to me I would have to go home and teach myself the subject, because clearly she couldn't. So i did, and scored a Distinction for the subject. :D No fucking thanks to her, lol.
 
satricion thanks for that. I hadn't known about all those issues with profs before. Makes me think that maybe they should all start in the highschool classroom first...
 
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