Question for folks who either went to college or currently attend college

[Drale]

What is the most annoying thing that professors do to you? Personally I hate it when a professor stops class to call someone out for leaving early by saying something like "next time you leave early tell me before class" or something along those lines. We paid to be here and if you want to leave early, as long as your not making a ton of noise, it's your choice.

[Aristus]

1. Nothing. I loved my professors.

My instructor for adult medicine was more like a friend to our class of physician assistant students. He was mellow, relaxed, very friendly, and a hard-core progressive, too.

I had some instructors who were better than others, and some who were unable to explain material better than the PowerPoint display. But most of them were fantastic.

[darkangel218]

2. I disagree, its not your choice to leave early.

There are regulations you accepted when you enrolled ( in my case, we had a student book and academic planner given to us at orientation)
Some professors are stricter than others, and its their right to be: its their class.

I loved ( love ) all my instructors.

[winter is coming]

16. There was no "regulation" when I was in college about going to class.

There were some classes where it was made clear in the syllabus that attendance and/or participation was part of the grade. Other than that, if you were early or late to class or missed it altogether, it was your responsibility to keep up with the work. I had one prof in college who wrote a great textbook but was a lousy lecturer. He knew it, and explicitly told us on the first day of classes that attendance was not required. Most people came to class with his textbook and underlined passages while he spoke.

[Scuba]

24. No, that's backwards. It's my class, I paid for it and the professor is getting paid by me.

A professor who fails to consider that the person leaving may be ill is doing everyone a disservice.

[darkangel218]

25. Not really.

Last edited Fri Sep 6, 2013, 10:54 AM - Edit history (1)

You agreed to follow their terms, when you enrolled. And it is definitely their class.
Some instructors would be flexible here and there, but its completely unacceptable to have a student get up and leave anytime they want, on regular basis.

That's not how it works.

[sharp_stick]

3. I don't hate that as much

as someone walking out in the middle of a lecture from a center seat usually down front.

If you're going to leave early sit near a door and nobody is going to notice at least until the exam rolls around.

[winter is coming]

17. That's just poor manners. On the occasions when I've had to leave something early, I try to let

the speaker know in advance that I need to leave early and why, and always sit near an exit.

[NightWatcher]

4. I hated when two of mine made us by the books they wrote

and then we never used them in class or in seminar. This only happened in upper level classes but was still damn upsetting.

I also hated when a TA taught the class because the Prof was too (busy, tired, bored, or important).

[Drale]

5. I've never had that problem with books

we always use the books they assign. Once you get over the 100 level at UIC very rarely will you see a T.A. teaching and its generally a scheduled day for them to do the lesson and the professor is still in the room or because the professor is sick.

[sharp_stick]

6. That's always a pain in the ass

I had one professor who got mad because a few people were using an old edition of one of his books instead of the shiny new edition.

We compared editions and the pathetic changes were no way important enough to warrant the new edition. Never mind the fact that he didn't even teach the sections that were changed.

[nomorenomore08]

9. I did take one class on Greek drama where some of the plays were our professor's own translations.

In this case, though, we actually used them, and they weren't bad.

[winter is coming]

18. I've had some that wrote great textbooks. I had one, though, where the "book" was his

photocopied handwritten notes, and his handwriting was atrocious.

[Yavin4]

7. When they make you buy a bunch of books

but never use them in class.

[nomorenomore08]

10. +1

Or you only use a small portion of a book that you paid like $50-80 for. Thankfully I was a literature major, so I didn't have to deal with too many huge, expensive textbooks.

[Taitertots]

8. Getting uppity when faced with the fact that many college students have outside responsibilities

A group of 5 people who have jobs are going to be able to meet for like 30 min a week.

No amount of holier than thou hand wringing and grade punishment will change the fact that people have responsibilities that are more important than college. I said (paraphrasing) "I'm not going to make myself homeless to appease you".

My attitude was that if I'm getting A's on every test and paper, I'm going to pretty much do as I please.

[nomorenomore08]

11. I only worked part of the time when I was in college, but I knew people in situations such as

you describe. Fortunately the professors at my school (UC Santa Cruz) seemed relatively understanding and flexible.

[sammytko]

12. Professor not knowing when it is time to retire..

Had one lady for a couple of classes, same stories, over and over again.

She also ran the student teaching program and would mess up all the assignments.

[hunter]

13. My professors were never annoying.

Can't say the same about myself as a college student.

[steve2470]

14. giving me a huge amount of work to do

I know you have to do some work in school, but let's be reasonable.

[hibbing]

15. assign group projects

Hey,
Maybe they don't do that anymore, but I graduated many many years ago. I had at least three classes where we were assigned group projects and I absolutely hated doing them.

Peace

[winter is coming]

19. I had one prof who didn't give us back *any* graded work until after the drop deadline.

The tests he set bore no relation to his lectures or to the assigned homework. It was a fucking guessing game from start to finish. I had another prof who taught out of the 4th edition of the textbook, not yet on the market, while we had the 3rd edition. He was completely unaware that that editions were vastly different. Again, a guessing game as to what material would be on the test.

[jmowreader]

20. Teach you things that are out of date, wrong or both

In Communism class - a very important subject if you're going to start spying on the bastards three weeks from now - our book claimed the People's Republic of China practiced "dynastic communism" - the form of communism where the son of the dictator becomes dictator upon his father's death...which led to this wonderful bit of teaching...

"The People's Republic of China practices dynastic communism, in which the son of the leader assumes the mantle of leadership upon the death of his father...hang on...that's North Korea, not China...who the fuck wrote this?"

And then there was the two-week block of instruction on writing reports in a format that went away with a computer that was turned off when I was a sophomore in high school...seven years before I went to this school.

[pinboy3niner]

21. Profs ridiculed me as "stupid" for going to Vietnam

It was a team-taught class of 400 in a large auditoreum at USC a long time ago.

I suppressed that memory (like everything connected with VN) until a classmate brought it up over a double-date dinner one night. That's just the way things were back then, even at a "conservative" school like USC.

[pinboy3niner]

22. I arrived late to class in JC once, and the prof interrupted everything to grill me

He actually paused in mid-sentence in his lecture when I came in to demand that I tell him why I was late.

Put me in a pickle, he did.

I'd had half my jaw and teeth blown away in VN, and in the hall on the way to class somebody bumped me and knocked my caps off. I went into the restroom to try to fix them, and the only thing that worked was stuffing a little TP into them to make them stay on. But of course, I couldn't bring myself to tell him that.

When the prof confronted me, I just said, "I forgot the time." And was ridiculed by him for five minutes in the middle of his lecture.

They say, "Don't get back--get even." My way of getting even was studying like hell for the midterm we had coming up. I worked my ass off, even showing up at school at 5am on the morning of the exam to study my notes.

A week after the exam we got our grades. The elderly prof introduced it by saying that in all his years of teaching, he'd never had anyone ace his exam--until now. And he walked down the aisle and handed my perfect-score exam to me, in front of the whole class.

That was good enough for me.

[Scuba]

23. Just yell over your shoulder "Sorry, bad diarrhea, gotta run".

Next time they'll ignore you.