How to Deal with Crummy Professors
Spend time on RateMyProfessor.com and you’ll find a huge list of complaints from students about their various professors.
Thankfully, I’ve been lucky to have mostly good professors throughout my college experience.
However, there are a few Profs who were lousy.
In fact, I dreaded going to their classes because they didn’t care about teaching – and they obviously didn’t care about us (their students).
Most of the time, I’ve been able to avoid these Profs by dropping them, but sometimes there’s no way around it. Sometimes that course is mandatory – and sometimes that professor is the only one teaching it.
So what do you do?
Well, here are some steps that I’ve taken to help me get through those classes successfully . . .
Ask good questions.
One way to improve your relationship with these professors is by staying active in class. Participate as much as possible and ask good questions.
Read your professor’s journal articles and/or books.
If you want to make an honest effort to befriend one of these professors, you should spend some time skimming through everything they’ve ever published. Through reading their writing, you’ll get a glimpse into what they’re interested in – and will arm you with info on how to write papers they’ll enjoy reading.
Visit them in office hours.
It’s rare for students to visit their Prof during office hours, so you’ll automatically stand out. Plan on making one or two brief visits during your semester. Even one visit will go a long way. You don’t have stay long. Just visit to get clarification on an assignment – or to ask a question about your reading. You’d be surprised how this can really benefit you.
Talk with your professor after class.
Be ready with one question at the end of some of your classes to ask your professor directly. Many students are scared to talk to teachers like this – so you can really make waves with him or her by stepping up and getting clarification on a paper assignment or the lecture.
Email your Prof an article you think they might find interesting.
If you find a website or article you he/she would appreciate, email it to them. They will probably thank you for the email.
What are some of the ways you’ve dealt with a lousy teacher?
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March 18th, 2008 at 11:22 am
I don’t know about dealing with them once you have them, but to avoid them I’d vote against ratemyprofessor.com. A lot of the negative stuff on there is just some kid who didn’t do the work and failed so they want to get back at the prof. What really means something is when someone who got a decent to good grade in the class has a negative view on them. Ask an upperclassman you trust, not an unreliable website.
March 18th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Sad, very sad. In the US the person who teaches, also creates the exams, and assigns grades! Too much power, open to exploitation, favoritism, unbalanced approach to the materials. In addition, in a “high powered” research university, your main untenured prof gets no points for teaching. Only for publishing. No undergrad is worth bothering about. And, in large lectures, you’re likely to be taught by some grad student (whose command of English may be poor) — no points for teaching here either.
What to do? Choose your college wisely. Do you really need to go to big research U?
Play the angles. Is there some way to substitute the “required” course with some other course? Talk to the department chair person, after having checked with secretaries about how to bend the rules. Treat all secretaries with enormous respect — bring them cookies — they know everything.
Really, it’s a lousy trap when prof X is a bore, a jerk, a tenured self-righteous pontificating blowhard.
March 18th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
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