A (former) college professor speaks out

From a former professor who wishes to remain anonymous. Apparently she just couldn't take it anymore.


Students, how do you bug me? Let me count the ways……..

1. By failing to read the syllabus and other documents I provide. I spend a lot of time on these. I write out the assignments and my expectations as clearly as possible in order to help students know exactly what they need to do each week, even if they miss a few classes. I post everything online, on Moodle. I also go over everything in excruciating detail in class. So it bugs the hell out of me when students do poorly because they failed to follow the detailed instructions they were given and then claim that they didn’t know what had to be done because “Dr. X didn’t tell us”. Yes, I did. In class AND IN THE WRITTEN INSTRUCTIONS WHICH YOU COULD ACCESS ONLINE AT ANY TIME!

2. By not getting the textbook. It’s not expensive. I’ve seen used copies on Amazon for as little as $1.99. Many students here have taken this course before you and will sell you their copies dirt cheap. Even our bookstore has reasonable prices on used copies, and they always have some in stock. So why do you expect me to believe that getting the book is some kind of incredible hardship? Why do you seem surprised that you have to buy your own book for a COLLEGE CLASS? And how on earth do you expect to pass the course without it?

3. By refusing to learn how to use Moodle. I don’t care that none of your other professors use it. It’s actually University policy that we use it. It also makes life much easier for everyone and keeps at least a ton of paper out of the local landfills every semester, so we’re using it. The End  

4. By expecting special treatment. What’s that you say? Your schedule is so tight that you can only do homework for this class between 8:37 p.m. and 9:04 p.m. on Mondays and this Monday you had to take your friend to the hospital to get stitches in his hand, so you couldn’t get your online quiz done, so you really, really need me to give you a special makeup quiz because you’ve never, ever gotten a grade lower than a B and it’s not fair because you work so very, very hard, and…..  Save your breath, dear, since mean old Dr. X is not going to give you a makeup quiz just because you are overscheduled. She won’t do it even if you are trying to keep your scholarship or if this is your last semester before graduation. You’ve had an entire week to get that quiz done, just like every other busy person in the class. Dr. X would have to drop the concept of due dates altogether if she allowed every student who is inconvenienced by them to have a makeup or an extension. Now, granted, even the über-evil Dr. X is willing to work with students who have truly catastrophic situations arise, but she is not at all interested in listening to you dramatize the everyday complications of your life. Here’s one of the Great Truths of Existence: everybody’s got problems and whining doesn’t help. 
And FYI, you might want to rethink your approach to homework.

5. By presuming that I should automatically be your friend. I am NOT your friend, even if you are a “nontraditional” student who is nearly my age. You are still a student and I am your professor. I will not extend any special treatment to you (see #4), no matter how many funny emails you forward to me or how many personal conversations you initiate before and after class. I evaluate everyone in the class based on their abilities as students, which has nothing to do with what, if anything, I think of them as people.   

6. By not asking any questions, then complaining just before an exam that you “don’t get” the material. This is why you have weeks and weeks of classes with a professor – so you have someone to ask about the course material. Otherwise, you could just read the book and proceed directly to the final exam, which you would ace of course, since you are, after all, a genius whose natural brilliance and creativity are obviously stifled to the point where the resulting ennui and despair prevent you from participating in class, emailing me, or coming to my office.

7. By not having your papers printed when they’re due. It bugs the hell out of me when students come into class insisting that really and truly their research papers are done, they only needed to print them, but couldn’t because [insert computer-related excuses here]. Well, my young grasshoppers, if the papers aren’t printed, guess what?  They’re not done. Here’s another one of those Great Truths: if you wait until the last minute before class to print an assignment, every computer and printer in the metropolitan area will spontaneously crash. Print in advance, or follow THE WRITTEN INSTRUCTIONS and submit your assignments as email attachments. Also realize that when you come to me with your tales of woe and I say “all right, then just get it to me before 5 p.m. today ”, and I see your bright little faces fall, I will know you’ve been lying all along about your work being finished.

8. By using cell phones, BlackBerries, IPads, etc. in class. Dr. X has a policy against that sort of thing for a reason. Well, she is just plain evil, so make that two reasons. Reason #2: Multitasking is a complete myth. You really DO NOT hear what’s going on in class while you’re texting, Tweeting, or updating your Facebook status. It doesn’t matter that you’re not actually talking out loud; you’re still distracting and distracted. You are, or more likely someone else is, paying LOTS of money for you to attend this University, and even though she’s evil, Dr. X hates to look out at the classroom and see thousands of dollars just being pissed away.

9. By making sotto voce (look it up) comments to your neighbors in class. It’s just plain rude. It also bugs me. If you have something relevant or witty to contribute, say it so that all can hear. It might even make Dr. X revise the opinion of you that she formed after reading your latest research paper. 

10. By moaning, groaning, and theatrically sighing. A surprising number of students apparently believe that if they groan or sigh when I hand out a test I will say “Oh, gee whiz, I’m so very, very sorry. You all knew this test was coming. I announced it several times and it was listed in the syllabus. But since the idea upsets you so much, we’ll just skip it and I’ll take those points out of the grade total”. It will NEVER, EVER happen that way. You just bug the hell out of me.

11. By plagiarizing and otherwise ruining your papers. I get it, I really do. Most of the students here would rather pull their own teeth than write a research paper or an essay. They would probably be more successful at it, too. But learning to research a simple topic, organize the information, and then synthesize it into (mostly) your own words is one of the things you’re here for. SO STOP COPYING AND PASTING A BUNCH OF WEBSITES TOGETHER!  I warn about this when assigning the papers and essays. I provide websites where you can learn what a research paper or essay is supposed to be, how to use APA format and how to avoid plagiarism, even though you were supposed to have already learned all those things in your composition classes. But I know that when the first papers are turned in at least twenty percent of them will be directly copied from various websites. Sometimes the fonts aren’t even changed and they still contain hyperlinks! Or the voice switches from active to passive in the middle of a paragraph! Ninety percent of the remaining papers will be formatted incorrectly, lack citations, or only have half the number of required pages. This is bugorious as hell AND insulting. It bugs me because I know you know better, and it's insulting because you must think I’m too stupid to notice these things. 

12. By repeatedly asking stupid questions. In spite of what other, lamer professors may have told you, there ARE such things as stupid questions. Here are a few examples: “What chapters do we have to read for next week?” “Is there going to be a quiz?” “When is the final project due?” “I’m going to miss class all next week; will we be doing anything important?” The answers to all four may be found in the syllabus, the “Assignments for this week”, or “The final project” documents on Moodle. That last question in particular displays a truly monumental stupidity, especially when it’s directed to the person who will be evaluating your, for lack of a better word, work.

13. By relentlessly asking this particularly stupid question: “Why don’t you just teach us what will be on the final exam?” Well, Dr. X is constantly teaching you what will be on the final exam, just not in the predigested checklist form that you apparently desire. Here’s a news flash: exams aren’t the point of an education! Believing that they are is like thinking that a wedding is all there is to a marriage. You are here to learn to think and reason about this and many other subjects. Exams are just a way to find out who has been paying attention. It used to be, and still is in a few places, that your final “exams” consisted of you going into a room with all your professors and answering their questions for hours until they decided that you actually could think clearly enough that you wouldn’t disgrace the university in future and thus had earned a degree. Unfortunately there are just too many students now to do it that way and I doubt very much if the vast majority of you could survive such a challenge to your precious self-esteems, so we have written exams. And if exams are the only things you think you’re supposed to accomplish here, than I weep for Western civilization.

14. By expecting me to care more about your education than you do. This is not middle school. No one is forcing you to be here. You had to fill out an application and a FAFSA, write a statement of your goals, arrange for transcripts and SAT scores to be sent, and jump through many other hoops in order to grace us with your presence. Then you had to come up with LOTS of money, either from your own earnings, parents, grants, or massive subsidized loans which you will spend decades repaying. So Dr. X cannot for the life of her understand why you would go through all of this and then not make the slightest effort to accomplish even the most basic college tasks like registering for the correct classes, showing up for said classes, and attempting to do the assigned reading and work. It really astounds and bugs her that you actually expect your professors to take your little hands, personally guide you through the arcane processes of reading the course catalogue and class syllabi, then call you every day to make sure you haven’t missed anything, and if you have, pat you on your empty heads and instantly make it all better. Dr. X has four words for you: HELL NO and GROW UP.

15. By being so excruciatingly dull. Sartre must have been thinking of you when he wrote “Hell is other people”. Nothing interests you: there is no light in those lackluster eyes, no conversation, no wit, no life, for heaven’s sake. Are you jaded because the subject matter is too easy for you? No, your paper and test grades attest to quite the opposite. Is it me? My evaluations all say no. Are you, in fact, the 21^st century equivalent of the Algonquin Round Table when you’re not here? Well, no doubt your classroom characters are a bit different from your roommate or friend personae, but unless you are truly Jekyll and Hyde types, I suspect that you are this painfully tedious and boring all the time. Only when I give you the low, low grades you earn do I see any animation. Alas, all your energetic last minute scheming and pleading are to no avail, but at least they let me know you’re not really zombies.

16. By displaying absolutely no intellectual curiosity or desire to learn ANYTHING. In fact, let’s make this even stronger: By actively RESISTING your own education. Dr. X is SICK TO DEATH of sitting through presentations and reading papers that barely rise to the level of a fourth grade report on “Our Friend the Sun”. Giving these half-assed abominations the failing grades they deserve is no consolation, either. She has attempted to make it abundantly clear in the instructions for the assignments, in the classroom, and in her comments on your graded work what college level research is, but she cannot seem to penetrate the mental barriers thrown up by the more determined ignoramuses. She could not care less if this class isn’t in your major; there is absolutely no excuse for such a blatant refusal to use that gray mass between your ears. It bugs the hell out of her that “students” such as yourselves have made it as far as her class with this attitude and scares the hell out of her that someone may still give you college degrees and positions of responsibility someday.