College would be great, if it weren't for the professors.

The BBQ Pit
1

You know, I really like college. I am free of the pesky emotional problems that plagued me throughout high school, I have found a new and large circle of friends that share my interests and want to have sex with me, and I’m learning assloads. However, this is not mainly due to the professors.

Now, there are some good and some great professors. Moreover, I’m in Computer Science, so I am spared the worst of professor; g++ doesn’t care if you have tenure. You’re either right or you’re not. However, I am taking a great deal of non-programming classes, and some of the professors are beginning to skeeve me just a little.

Dr G: News flash: We read Snopes. Passing off glurge as your own past experiences dosen’t make your lecture better. All it does is make us wonder what else you’re making up. On the plus side, you just made a little side note about stories and truth the other day, which more or less told to anyone that was listening not to take your stories as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so you’re cool.

Dr D: Look, normally I wouldn’t complain about this, but I really wouldn’t mind if you actually put some marks on my essay beyond the ‘100’. I mean, it’s nice that you think that every word I’ve written for you is perfect, and needs no improvement, including the essay I dashed off half an hour before class began that made no reference to the reading, but still, please, at least pretend you’re reading our essays?

Also, not doing your damndest to run, hide, and let the TA handle it whenever we ask an administrative question would be nice.
Dr A: Congratulations on being the exception to my comment about CS professors above. We are third-year CS students. For the love of God, when we start giving you multiple citations demonstrating that the point you made and have been defending ineffectually for the past fifteen minutes, just admit you were wrong, make a note of what is right, and move on.

Dr M: You know what, I learned a whole lot from your class. You were a great teacher, and you always stopped and explained things when people asked. Now, remember that we’re the softmore-level differental equations class and not the graduate-level one, and everyone will be happy. On the other hand, I still pulled off a B, despite you covering material that is nowhere in anyone else’s curriculum at this level, so I suppose I don’t have much of a leg to stand on complaining about it.

Professors B and S (oh how appropriate that I group you, based on your initials): I don’t know what it is about bald math professors that hate me, but you two both did. At least S had the guts to tell me flat-out that he didn’t like me. Professor B, on the other hand, simply made hints and tossed the odd insult my way most classes. Also, to both of you: congratulations on taking points off for my work for things that you didn’t take off for on other people’s. You must get such a rush from that, knowing that you’ve beaten out even my freshman English professor for arbitrary grading.

Oh, yeah. Professor B? You know those students who would yawn dramatically, get up, and walk out in the middle of class? They had handed sheets of paper with their name written on them, so when you angrily had an attendence quiz, you were actually helping them.

Speaking of which, Mrs. S: you’re a nice lady, but please, get a clue. I did. That’s why all of my papers past the first started magically agreeing with your conclusions, and why my grades went from B- to A+. I especially like the way that you presented my final paper topic and my thesis statement to the class, before I had actually written the statement. Well, you did make it easy to decide what to do.

All in all, though, my college career hasn’t been that bad. None of my teachers’ idiosyncracies have been enough to pull any of my grades below a B- (with the exception of Professor S), and my lack-of-homework contributed as much as his creative grading. Still, I am scheduled to graduate with a shiny new CS major and math minor about a year from now, and then, I will be looking back on you with fondness for not being my boss.

2

mhendo…paging mhendo. A poster is complaining about college. Your attention is needed. Paging mhendo…

Wait until you get to the Real World, and discover that these folks were the sane ones! :smiley:

3

:dubious:

4

Oh, but I enjoy my insane professors.

Also, a note to any teachers (especially logic or philosophy teachers) reading this:
If when you claim you are open to opposing points of view but in actually mean opposing points of view that aren’t
A) written in symbolic logic, and as such easily checkable and damn hard to disprove if I actually do have correct premises and no logical flaws

B) a proof that one of your favored philosophers is actually advocating wanton butchery and cannibalism among the poor or has in fact actually proven the existence of The Entity More Perfect Than The Most Perfect Entity.

please say so ahead of time. Thank you!

5

Geeks need love, too.

6

They just have to pay for it.

7

Yeah, I miss Mr. Rea. Tell me, was your argument bullshit, or horseshit? (For the rest of you: bullshit meant that you made up your argument out of thin air and didn’t actually believe it; horseshit meant that you believed it but it was stupid.)

Just be glad that, as a CS major, you probably won’t have to deal with the infamous Karl Bean. Remember, folks: all creative writing falls into one of two categories, Beauty or the Sublime, and never shall the two intersect. Beauty has form, while the sublime is completely formless. Beauty deals with pleasure; the sublime focuses on a negative anti-pleasure. Beauty focuses on quality; the sublime is based on quantity. These are not guidelines. They are Truth. Should you pen a formless story that focuses on pleasurable sensations, you have not blended the two categories; you have attempted to achieve the sublime but failed.

Ah, Karl Bean. Good times. Good times.

8

He initially thought I was bullshitting. (Actually, I was, at first.) Then, I wrote it up in symbolic logic, and he upgraded it to horseshit. Then I actually started asking him to find flaws in it.

Rea: Your proof is wrong.
Me: Yes. I direct your attention to the proof-by-contradiction part.

Rea: This is stupid. If G is the most perfect thing, G+1 can’t exist.
Me: (Points to G -> ~(G+1))
Rea: So that means that the idea of G+1 is bogus.
Me: Descartes himself said that ideas were neither right nor wrong. You want chapter and verse?

And the fun bit:
Me: So you cannot find a flaw in my logic? My argument is valid, then?
Him: Yessss…
Me: And of my premises, the only ones that can be false are those necessary for Descartes’ argument?
Him: (Not liking my tone at all) Yessss…
Me: So I’m right, then?
Him: No.
Me: Ah, you’re disputing the a peano axioms, then?
Rea just looks at me.
Also, for those playing our home game, the proof:


Premises:

G		(The most perfect entity exists) From Descartes
i(G)		(The idea of the most perfect entity exists) From Descartes
i(G+1) 		(The idea of an entity more perfect than the most perfect entity exists)From self, apparently

Set Y contains all things with non-infinite perfection. (For all y in Y, y < G)

Set X contains all things.  Consider X the perfection real line, as it were.

G -> ~(G+1)	If G is most perfect, something more perfect can't exist

For all x in X, (i(x) > all y in Y) -> x	Descartes' argument, in Logic.
				If the idea of something is more perfect than 
                                everything finitely perfect (e.g., us), it had 
                                to come from something of infinite perfection.

i(G) > y -> i(G+1) > y		G+1 is at least as perfect as G

i(G+1) -> G+1			From Descartes' argument above.

Contradiction:	(G+1) /\ ~(G+1)
Q.E.D.
9

Also, a few other choice quotes from my time with Rea:

Rea: When I lived in Williamsburg-It’s a hellhole, never go there-
Me: I’m from Williamsburg.
Rea: As I said. Anyway, when I lived in Williamsburg…

Rea: Knight.
Someone: She’s in the hospital.
Rea: Bummer. Liguori.
Me: Here!
Rea: Bummer.

Random student: What would happen if Hume had a time machine - (there was more to this question, but everyone started laughing at this point and I didn’t hear it.)
Rea:…I can’t believe it’s you asking this and not these two jokers. I’ve been waiting for weeks for Fro-Hickey(that would be me, the person who still hasn’t had a haircut since that class) here to go all X-files on me.

10

All right, I know that this one is just about the professors → bosses comparison… but MAN I hate this sort of thing. And so I am going to go off on a tangent of my own here for a minute. Yes, a lot of aspects of college are much better than those of a full-time job… but does Wait Until You Get To The Real World have to come up SO often?

If everyone really found The Real World that horrible, we’d all be trying to get our sixth bachelor’s degree or second PhD, not… uh… working.

Some advantages of The Real World over college:

  1. They pay you.
  2. You get to do things that someone is willing to pay you FOR rather than just exercises of questionable value.
  3. Your work has an audience of more than one person.
  4. They pay you.
  5. Sometimes they let you look through one of those big office supply catalogs and order things. Ooh, shiny.
  6. Significantly less chance of exposure to hideous young adult fashions.
  7. Unless you’re working at a startup or in some other insane situation, no more all-nighters.
  8. They give you money.
  9. Meetings are more likely than lectures to come with doughnuts.
  10. Customs doesn’t glare at you suspiciously when you tell them what your job is.

I’d list some more, but I have to get up for work tomorrow. :smiley:

11

You might consider looking up Russell’s paradox.

I agree with you, though, that Descartes’s argument made little sense.

12

Hmm, i never realised that i was considered by some (or at least one) to be the default protagonist in cases like this.

I’m not sure whether or not your call was tongue-in-cheek, but if you feel—as your post suggests—that i’m a knee-jerk opponent of all people who complain about college, then you’re seriously mistaken. My ire is generally reserved for people who either can’t follow the fucking rules, don’t think the rules should apply to them, or who somehow think that their very presence in college entitles them to a degree.

There are often plenty of things about which a student might complain in college. The OP’s example of Dr. D., the teacher who gives a grade of 100% with no comments, is one such thing, in my opinion. While 100% with no comments might be acceptable in a math test (i don’t really know), it isn’t in any class where the piece of submitted work was a paper. Even the best piece of work should receive some sort of comment from the teacher, both to demonstrate that s/he has actually read the paper, and as an acknowledgement of a student’s excellent work. And even in outstanding papers, there are generally points the teacher can raise that provide the student with more food for thought. Feedback to students is a key component of good teaching.

As for the stuff about Professors B and S, who allegedly “hated” the OP, stuff like this is often unavoidable and is usually—as in many interpersonal conflicts—partly the fault of both parties. For all we know, those same professors are sitting at home wondering why robertligouri has an irrational dislike for them. I try not to sweat this stuff too much, because personality conflicts are a part of life and don’t necessarily mean that either party is at fault or a bad person. Of course, if you think this is affecting the way they grade your work or something, that’s a different story. Also, professors are professionals, and as such should do everything possible to avoid personal animus, or at least to make sure that a student has no reason to become aware of it, either through your treatment of them in class or through the evaluation system.

Dr. G.'s repetition of Snopes glurge as personal experience is silly, but it’s also actually rather common, and psychologically explicable. Once a story or an urban legend becomes firmly engrained in the culture, it’s actually not uncommon for people to hear it so often, or in such a context, that they begin to identify it as a personal experience. This is not always a product of simple dishonesty or a desire to deceive, but can actually become a genuine belief that the event forms part of that person’s own past. IIRC, it’s even happened here on the boards once or twice, where someone writes an OP about a personal experience, and someone else then links to Snopes where exactly the same story can be found. Of course, it’s entirely possible that Dr. G. is a plain old bullshitter.

13

My husband teaches sociology at our local university branch campus. He reads all of the essays-- God help him. Me, I can barely get past the first couple of lines sometimes. (Note that I did not use the word “sentances.”) Most of the papers, and I do mean “most”, are poorly spelt, with random punctuation, and barely intelligible.

Take it as a compliment. I’ve only seen him assign a grade without comments a couple of times and that was because the students did a good job.

14

And he programmed them all himself.

15

And you’ve just hit on one of the advantages of college over The Real World…

  • If you were clever enough to not schedule yourself for any 8 AM classes, you don’t have to get up early tomorrow. :smiley:
16

Well, anyone can find THOSE.
I knew a guy who managed to schedule himself for a full, above-minimum courseload with nothing starting before 1 PM and nothing on Fridays. He became a legend in his own… uh… dorm.

17

If mhendo is declining the post of “Knee-Jerk Defender of All Things College” can I apply?

I’ve got credentials!

I said I personally wanted to cockpunch Ward Churchill (well, I believe the verb was ‘strangle’) but told the Colorado legislature to butt the fuck out. Surely that’s a resume-builder right there!

18

And let us not forget the “You’re Wrong Because You’re A White Male In A Multicultural Studies Class” professor.

Lovely how I could tell him something in discussion, have him roll his eyes at me and say that’s not what he was looking for and then 10 minutes later he would parrot my words back at us verbatim as his own revelation.

Great guy, we got along swimmingly and we wound up giving each other high marks (my grades, his teacher evaluation), but it was maddening at times in class.

19

Actualy, I loved getting up early i college - the thing was, I wanted to get up, do all my classes, eat lunch, and then dick around doing whatever the hell I pleased until after midnight. Then do it all again. :slight_smile:

20

Why do you say he programmed them all himself? :wink: