Topology is later today and it's an awesome professor teaching

[JasonRox]

I walk into Real Analysis and in the first 3 seconds my thoughts go...

... drop class NOW!

When I first took the course, I was under the impression that the chair of the department would be teaching the course. Unfortunately, the professor from last year Complex Analysis is teaching the course and he is the WORSE professor/teacher in the world. Nice guy and knows his stuff, but he should not teach.

I don't know if you guys remember me complaining about my Complex Analysis professor from last year, but let me tell you... he's bad! I'm also tempted to video tape because people would just laugh at the torture the students go through. I, myself, was laughing at the other 3 students in class (only 3 because many others are aware of him). Because they have no idea what's in store for them.

Anyways, he's bad and I'm dropping the course. I don't particularly need it and will try to take it in the summer. I'm going to go to a different school in the summer, so he won't be able to haunt me. I might still get a bad professor, but it won't be nearly as bad as him. The chair of the department isn't the greatest professor either, but I was excited to have him because it should be a more exciting course to teach for him. And possibly he will come out better, but the other professor is just bloody terrible.

I'm guessing the other girl in the course will drop the course too, so I hope he has fun teaching 2 students if they choose to stay.

So long for now.

Note: Topology is later today and it's an awesome professor teaching.

 

[neutrino]

You shoud've dropped the course after you took the video.

 

[JasonRox]

You shoud've dropped the course after you took the video.

He's so unorganized he will probably forget if I dropped it or not.

The sad part is there is only 3 students now and he will still lose track.

 

[Rach3]

He's so unorganized he will probably forget if I dropped it or not.

The sad part is there is only 3 students now and he will still lose track.

I had a professor for a two-student class who at times didn't notice that the one had left the classroom, and the other fallen asleep; he kept on lecturing.

 

[Evo]

The Child of Evo just started University and she had an awesome teacher in high school for philosophy, so she was all excited about taking philosophy at a higher level. She thought. The professor is so bad she's thinking about dropping the class. She said that if she'd had this idiot teaching in high school she'd think philosphy was nothing but crap. She is bitterly disappointed, she loved philosophy. I told her "welcome to philosophy on the internet level".

Teachers can make or break so much. Unfortunately I can count the "good" teachers I've had on one hand.

 

[JasonRox]

The Child of Evo just started University and she had an awesome teacher in high school for philosophy, so she was all excited about taking philosophy at a higher level. She thought. The professor is so bad she's thinking about dropping the class. She said that if she'd had this idiot teaching in high school she'd think philosphy was nothing but crap. She is bitterly disappointed, she loved philosophy. I told her "welcome to philosophy on the internet level".

Teachers can make or break so much. Unfortunately I can count the "good" teachers I've had on one hand.

That sucks.

My philosophy professor from last year was awesome! One of my favourite classes.

 

[Blahness]

Throughout Elementary/High school, my teachers have been too impersonal to really judge. =|

 

[turbo]

The Child of Evo just started University and she had an awesome teacher in high school for philosophy, so she was all excited about taking philosophy at a higher level. She thought. The professor is so bad she's thinking about dropping the class. She said that if she'd had this idiot teaching in high school she'd think philosphy was nothing but crap. She is bitterly disappointed, she loved philosophy. I told her "welcome to philosophy on the internet level".

Teachers can make or break so much. Unfortunately I can count the "good" teachers I've had on one hand.

I got really lucky on several counts. As a freshman at UMO, I was funneled into an honors program run by Professor Emeritus Dr. Cecil Rhodes - one of the wisest persons I have ever known. Though I was an engineering student, he encouraged me to follow something he knew I had a love for - English literature. I especially loved the poetry of the Romantic Period (Burns, Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, Byron...) so that wasn't a hard sell. I liked those courses so much, I turned down a 5-year Pulp and Paper scholarship (with summer internships) to switch to Arts and Sciences. Then a friend told me that Dr. Erling Skorpen was going to conduct a special course for seniors and grad students on Meta-ethics (a subject on which he was writing a book) and she suggested that I talk to him about auditing the course. I approached him and he said I could have 15 minutes at lunch-time. We talked for over 3 hours and he let me take the course for full credit. That led me to a double major in English Lit and Philosophy, since whenever I saw a Philosophy class I wanted to take, the professors and instructors always accepted me, even though I had never taken the introductory courses. Dr. Skorpen was my key to the advanced courses, where the real fun is. He was a Rhodes Scholar and taught at Oxford, Yale, and UNLV, before moving his family to Maine in the '60s. I don't know how long he headed the Philosophy department at Maine, but I was lucky to be at the right place at the right time. I ended up with some great teachers, and I was privileged to count them as friends, as well. My A&S advisor was a hoot! After I had scheduled a very full slate of classes for my next semester, he said "what do you think about teaching?" I said that I guess I could fall back on that if nothing better came up, so he entered 3 more courses into my schedule, all on the theory of education. I protested that with the heavy course load (double major, still with compulsary courses to take in my new college) I would be stretched a bit too thin. He said "just show up, you'll do fine." I aced those courses with no effort, and there was really no additional work to do for them. I think I had 18 credit hours that semester, but 6 of them were basically gimmes. I should have gone the education route. Health benefits, state pension after 25 years, all your summers off, including lots of school breaks and any holiday that ends in a "Y". Just kidding - I think I could have been a good teacher and made a difference for some kids, but life intervened and I ended up back in technical fields.

Evo, I can probably count my really great teachers on the fingers of one had, but they came at the right time in my life, and I hope Chile of Evo gets one or two of them too.

I worked as a soils tester during the construction of a local pulp mill and when I applied for a job as a millworker, I was invited to apply for a job as a Process Chemist. While the head of the technical department was interviewing me, his chief environmental engineer barged in complaining about a lack of capacity in the aeration basins for the upcoming shutdown. I said "You've got plenty of excess holding capacity in the sludge ponds, and the ability to valve raw effluent there, but draw down the aeration basins, by pumping them into the sludge ponds, and after the big pH shift (and bug kill) of the shutdown and the digester acid-wash, you can bleed the bug-rich, buffering mix from the sludge ponds to the aeration basins and get those aeration basins busy reducing the BOD." The engineer just looked at me, and the director said "How do you know that?" I told him that I had spent a whole summer testing the soils comprising those clay-core dikes with a full set of blueprints to refer to, and the pumping and valving options just made sense. When I got home, my wife said "the mill called - your medical exam is monday." The guy I beat out for the job was a Chem E UMO graduate, and his older brother (a party animal extrordonaire!) was one of my buddies at Orono. He got the next open slot in the Tech Dept, but he never let me forget it!

 

[franznietzsche]

Teachers can make or break so much. Unfortunately I can count the "good" teachers I've had on one hand.

I've actually had a lot, now that I think about it. The ones that stand out in my mind are my freshmen/sophomore year math teacher in high school (also our tennis coach). If it weren't for him, I might have ever developed any work ethic (i certainly didn't have one when I first had him as a freshmen). My senior year history and epistemology teacher. My freshmen writing course professor in college. And my stat mech professor. Looking back on it, all of them influenced more than just my academic career as well.

 

[JasonRox]

I've actually had a lot, now that I think about it. The ones that stand out in my mind are my freshmen/sophomore year math teacher in high school (also our tennis coach). If it weren't for him, I might have ever developed any work ethic (i certainly didn't have one when I first had him as a freshmen). My senior year history and epistemology teacher. My freshmen writing course professor in college. And my stat mech professor. Looking back on it, all of them influenced more than just my academic career as well.

I've had a few too. Not so much in high school though.

I've had good teachers in college before university. The most important for me I think was my English writing teacher.

And, my last term Analysis professor last year was great too. I hope he gets a full-time position soon.

I can't really remember much.

Note: One of my good teachers and memorable ones too got charged with Sexual Abuse/Assault on a Child, like 8 months ago or something. I couldn't believe it. Rumours spread that it isn't true though.

 

[Moonbear]

I'm guessing the other girl in the course will drop the course too, so I hope he has fun teaching 2 students if they choose to stay.

The other girl? Were you the first? Maybe he'll teach better one-on-one with the two remaining students rather than in a lecture format.

What is it about his teaching that you consider bad? Boring, disorganized, doesn't know his material well, something else?

 

[JasonRox]

The other girl? Were you the first? Maybe he'll teach better one-on-one with the two remaining students rather than in a lecture format.

What is it about his teaching that you consider bad? Boring, disorganized, doesn't know his material well, something else?

- Disorganized: Notes go all over the place, loses track of things, and even forgets to come to class!
- Boring: Talk to the chalkboard. Never looks at the class while talking and simply just reads his notes. We had a little mini throw stuff fight last year (7 students) and he never noticed. Talks really low.
- Not Helpful: You ask a question and he wanders on about something else and the whole time he's answering your question he's looking at the board.
- Material: Assignments come out of thin air! We ask ourselves where does this come from? He never taught this. Keep in my mind last year our last assignment was due on exam day and no one did the assignment. We had no idea where it came from.
- Teaching is Bad: Simply can not teach an idea to anyone. Can not explain ideas clearly or not even at all. I talked to him one-on-one and I got nothing out of it.

It's very serious. He should be fired.

 

[JasonRox]

The other girl? Were you the first? Maybe he'll teach better one-on-one with the two remaining students rather than in a lecture format.

What is it about his teaching that you consider bad? Boring, disorganized, doesn't know his material well, something else?

Lecture format? He's only teaching 4 students to begin with and last year it was like 7 students.

Not only that, last year he taught Calculus II and we had our midterm with them since we have such a small class, and wow I pity them. I can't imagine him teaching 150 students we he can barely convey ideas or teach in front of 7 students!

Damn, I can't believe I paid for that class last year. I was so mad that I was tempted to fight for a refund, but then all the professors might hate me for it. I talked to one professor about it, and he said you're going to have to teach yourself because bad professors come around. I've had bad professors before, but they still teach and I get something out of it. Unfortunately, with this extremely horrid professor I got absolutely nothing. Atleast a regular bad professor can convey some ideas I can probably use and work on that. I got nothing.

It was so bad that you can't even grade his teaching because he flat out doesn't teach so there is nothing to grade. That's how bad it is. It's not a different teaching style or anything because he just has no style. I have not met someone who liked this professor... not even a little bit.

Note: For other bad professors, I always find students who like them because they prefer his style. That's normal, so I don't really say he's a bad professor. I just say he's not my style, but I can still manage to learn something.

 

[Moonbear]

- Disorganized: Notes go all over the place, loses track of things, and even forgets to come to class!
- Boring: Talk to the chalkboard. Never looks at the class while talking and simply just reads his notes. We had a little mini throw stuff fight last year (7 students) and he never noticed. Talks really low.
- Not Helpful: You ask a question and he wanders on about something else and the whole time he's answering your question he's looking at the board.
- Material: Assignments come out of thin air! We ask ourselves where does this come from? He never taught this. Keep in my mind last year our last assignment was due on exam day and no one did the assignment. We had no idea where it came from.
- Teaching is Bad: Simply can not teach an idea to anyone. Can not explain ideas clearly or not even at all. I talked to him one-on-one and I got nothing out of it.

It's very serious. He should be fired.

Yikes! That does sound awful! I had one prof once who mumbled to the board during the entire lecture, but at least he made sense if you could hear him. Yep, sounds like the sort of person who shouldn't be teaching.

 

[turbo]

JasonRox, I sympathise. My freshman year in engineering school, I had an advanced calculus course at 8:00 am with an assistant professor named Hooper who REALLY didn't want to be there. I hadn't had enough calculus in HS to keep me up to speed with the class without being able to ask questions here and there. The problem was that he couldn't answer the most basic questions put to him. He could point to the relevant area of the text, but could not paraphrase or offer an illuminating comment. During class, he would talk to the blackboard, working out example problems that illustrated the day's lessons, and while most of us were trying to figure out why his example didn't make sense, a really sharp student (initials JH - If you're here Jeff, you know who I mean!) would chime in and say "I worked out that problem last night and there is a problem with xyz in your example", etc, and the jerk instructor would look at the board, and say (I swear!) "Oh, just a problem with the algebra." and erase the equation, so the rest of the class never got to see how a proper answer could be derived. I visited him during office hours and asked him to please answer relevant questions, and to please correct the example equations when obvious errors were pointed out, and he said that he was going to give me a failing grade due to poor classroom performance, but that he would "allow" me to drop the course with a passing grade if I would leave. I left, rather than fight with the jerk, because I knew things weren't going to get better. Despite that set-back, I was offered one of the coveted 5-year Pulp and Paper Scholarships in Chemical Engineering, so apparently my performance in the applied sciences, labs, etc was acceptable. Instructors like this can cost you time, money (if you drop after the free-drop period expires), and a lot of effort, but learn to get around them - do what is best for yourself.

 

[Cyrus]

I smell a promotion...dare I say, department chair?

 

[turbo]

I smell a promotion...dare I say, department chair?

Is that how rotten instructors with tenure are "insulated" from students?