Hah! That would be the day. In any case, interesting replies here. The class starts June 15th so I’ll be sure to update the thread with my initial impressions.
On the other hand, I could see where it might be interesting to take a composition class with an instructor who wrote the book(s). Getting their insight to the writing process, what the first and second and final drafts looked like - the steps to publication; there might be some cool things to be learned.
With any amount of luck, the books might actually be good.
Granted, I might tread lightly on criticisms, but then again - maybe this instructor wants and demands constructive criticism.
I guess what I am saying is hold off and see what happens before you write this class off as a total waste of time and money.
I took a language class from a professor who wrote his own textbook for the class. It was aimed at the travel agent certificate students at the University (I wasn’t one but scheduling conflicts put me in that class) so he wanted to teach the vocab in a different order than the standard books. IOW, he had a reason for writing the book himself and he tried to keep costs down in the production of it. he was a great professor and I enjoyed the two courses I took from him.
But 5-6 books for a summer course? that’s crazy. Why couldn’t he just put it all in one book? Besides the fact that nearly every university in America teaches a “composition and critical thinking” class. There would be hundreds of textbooks to choose from already for such a course. My first impression would probably be the same as yours, but you probably want to keep an open mind for the first couple of classes.
I taught Comp/Crit. Thinking once at another campus, and we used one textbook.
I can’t imagine using more than one for such a class, unless the prof is assigning novels or plays, but those would have been authored by others.
Wow. My students pay about $350.00 for their calculus book, granted it lasts for entire course-line. But my differential equations students pay about the same (I think it’s like $290.00) for one book, which is about 200 pages long, for one term.
OP, it’s essentially this: you need this class more than this class needs you. So, you can either do the coursework as it’s given, or not. The choice is yours, but unfortunately, you seem to be on a schedule. Ya know, deadlines for applications and all.
There are classes in which the only book used is the one I’ve written. Why would it matter who wrote the book(s) so much as the actual content in them? For all you know, this guy could be brilliant and each of his “books” might really be akin to chapters in a larger book. Perhaps he’s parceled them up that way for the flexibility of your budget so you needn’t buy one large book for several hundred dollars. It’s, you know, possible that he would rather be able to tailor each of his classes by only requiring of students to buy only the relevant parts.
Or not. But none of us knows this because, quite simply, instead of trying to understand, you have chosen to just come up with your own conclusions without any support other than your immaturity. If this is how you’re going to conduct your life, and your academic affairs, then you should probably stay in the liberal arts because intellectually difficult classes are, for the moment, beyond where you are.
The prices set aren’t in the hands of the instructor though. So, you can’t really bitch to him about that. And none of the academics I know, myself included, who uses his/her own book to teach a class is doing so for the kickback. My book is sold to student for cost, plus whatever the school’s bookstore decides to mark it up. I make nothing off of the transaction, unless you consider having my “name” spread around. But that’s hardly an effective marketing strategy. It’s far more effective to just be a professor at a good university, which seems to have worked well for me.
Anyway, perhaps you should hold in abeyance is your preconceptions as being determinative. Just accept it for what it is and do your best work.
That sounds easier than fighting to have the book sold for cost by artificially inflating the overall sale price of the book elsewhere. Then again, I’m not sure I’d want to set the precedent of paying my students, even if it was to offset any appearance of impropriety.
I can see it now: Dr. ____ gives us a refund!
I dont know…realizing the system sucks and many folks are out to either screw you over… or nickel and dime you death… or they know they have you by the big brass ones so you WILL bend over or suffer the consequences…
Well, to me that speaks well for the OP at least having a hint at how, unfortunately, the world really works that is beyond their years…
I had a philosophy professor about 15 years ago:eek:(I’m OOOLLLLDDDD). Had him for two classes, both classes he assigned 2 of his own books at about $65 a pop and one other actually valid text.
And yes the guy was an arrogant useless sack. His idea of philosophy was to parrot back what he though to him, nothing to back it up, just agree with him and you got an A. Come up with an original thought, back it up and argue it properly and you were simply “WRONG” and you failed.
I don’t recall him ever assigning any reading out of his own texts, you just had to buy them. Second worst professor I had in 4.5 years of college.
So yes the OP is correct in assuming the prof is a self serving jerk.
Harriet, what your professor did was cool.
I agree with everything you said, except for the above. As a fellow Mathie, I have to say this is uncalled for.
Well, that’s the joy of opinions. It’s been my experience that students who come in thinking things should be there way without the ability to pause and reflect that there may well be some method to someone’s madness don’t do very well. Perhaps I’ve been unlucky (or lucky?) to get those experiences from time to time. I wonder how the research grant would look to start a small study for that. <wicked grin>
Just because you and I share in common mathematics doesn’t mean that we won’t have rather disparate experiences in life which will inform our opinions. I’m sure you’ll readily agree to that. That said, my take on it that if he’s reasonable enough to examine the potential reasons for this a priori, then he’s not likely at a point where his reasoning will well lend itself to the analysis of actually complex subjects. To my credit though, I allowed for the possibility that I could be wrong by imposing a necessary degree of wiggle room in the form of “probably”. Whether I’m right or wrong remains to be seen, but I at least allow for either case to be true.
Bubba, I’m a bit curious. Your argument is that a.) OP is correct in his view because, b.) fifteen years ago you had one shitty teacher. I’m not sure how b would at all support a.
I’m sorry that you had what you think what a useless sack for a professor. It happens. Not all teachers are great: indeed, some must be bad for you to know the difference. =P
Billfish, that would, to my mind, require a particularly jaded outlook on life. It’s essentially: if you have a friend who’s true blue, better fuck him before you fucks you. If that serves you well in your life, then I’m in no position to counsel otherwise. However, that doesn’t mean that particular attitude is going to work equally well for everyone else.
Freshman English, a required class for all incoming. Two of the required books were by a guy in the department. Neither ever got opened. Could I complain to the chair of the department? no, they were HIS books.
no one liked him, his wife (who i had for class) was great, however…
@ashman165
Oh, I didn’t mean your criticism of the OP was uncalled for. I meant that denigrating the Liberal Arts was uncalled for.
Ahh. I see. Well, um, perhaps. =P
Also, I didn’t mean to have that malapropism there: clearly I meant “their”, not “there” in sentence two.
But if you go through life acting like no one is going to try to screw you over, ever, then you fall for a lot of scams (just ask any of Bernie Madoff’s victims). As you point out, living like everyone is trying to screw you over is no way to live, either. You have to find a middle ground between the two where you trust some people, but not too many people who were not acting in your best interests.
Where did I ever express the view that things should be “my way”, or fail to reflect that there may be a reason for it? If anyone is making assumptions it’s you. I admitted he may be a fine teacher, but that I am simply on guard for a potential twat. I still intend to attend and complete the class, since I am pretty much compelled to for my degree requirements.
My concerns are also probably colored by my community college experience so far - the level of academic rigor has been quite lax. Several of my instructors could not even spell or compose grammatically correct English when they write on the board or distribute a handout. They run PowerPoint presentations which are just notes copied from the book, without adding anything of their own (or even necessarily understanding the source material, in some cases). The final exam for my last GE-required course was the most farcical excuse for a test I’ve ever seen. So I’ve come to have low expectations here.
Actually, IMO NEITHER where called for. At least no the way ashman did it. That why I posted what I did.
Most of ashman’s post was reasonable, except for the part that I quoted. THAT part was uncalled for, snarky, and smarter/holier than thou . It was more suitable for the Pit, and perhaps great debates.
Plenty of folks gave plausible (if somewhat unlikely) reasons why the “kid” might NOT be getting the shaft. The “kid” even came back agreeing that all might not be lost and would take a wait and see attitude. Several folks also expressed doubt that for something like a summer intro/english/whatever class that custom “books” by the instructor seemed somewhat suspicious.
Then, after ALL that, the snark attack occurs. Me thinks the snark douth protest too much.
While I understand this is your thread, my view isn’t colored entirely by you. As I said, it’s informed by similar situations as I’ve experienced them and how I’m approximating that to you. Much the same as how your estimation of your teacher is informed by the general climate of your school. You know more about that than I; however, I’d imagine that I know more about you than you do about your teacher. And, as I’ve said, I might be entirely wrong about you (I allowed for it). But it’s essentially that it just strikes me as you being cocksure, or in other words, you’re still young enough to know everything whereas I am no longer that young. =P
Even at the “good” school whereat I’ve taught, we still get people who do well on tests, but who are remarkably poor students. And who will likely be very bad academicians. They come in several different flavors, but one of the more prominent ones is the attitude I take you to have by merely reading this post. If it turns out that I’m wrong about you based on a.) what you’ve typed, and b.) my previous experience with what feels similar to how I’m reading what you’ve typed, then I apologize.
My high school’s motto is: “No one rises to low expectations.”
But even if we assume that all of your teachers are crappy, and the general state of education in your college is low, big deal. A substantial part of the learning one gets in college happens outside of the classroom. Teachers, instructors, at least the good ones, are guides on better ways to approach ideas. They aren’t the arbiter of what ideas you may happen to want to entertain. Our job largely is to inspire in you a thirst for knowledge, and to equip you with the tools to figure it out on your own.
Sure, there’s the baseline stuff which is by and large “here’s how it is, learn it, live it” in my field. But that’s mathematics for you. For some things, there just aren’t two ways about it; what you see is what you get - at least at the introductory level. And unlike some other fields, the reasons that certain things work the way they do you’ll have to take with a bit of faith until higher levels of study can be had based upon having a good toolbox with which to analyze them. Essentially, it’s us providing you with the vocabulary you’ll require to explore it more freely for yourself.
Some people just suck at it. In those cases, take what you can from it, do the work and just get it behind you.
Curiously enough, I’m left to wonder why it is you remain at this college if it’s so academically uninspiring. I’m not sure how it is where you live (I have only your estimation), but the junior colleges around my parts are fairly rigorous. I would posit that in many instances, they are more challenging than our universities because their curricula are mandated to approximate ours, only we have semester systems and they have quarter systems. So, in their three quarters of calculus, they must cover the same material we cover in two semesters. Plus, they don’t get the gap days to mull over the material that’s been covered during lectures.
Also, there’s the argument about why some of them are in a junior college and not a university to start with, but I won’t really go there because the reasons might not be academic so much as financial.
All of this is to say that if something is adequately important to you to learn, you’ll learn it well despite shitty teachers.
For what it’s worth, Rigmarole, you did not strike me that way. (And I too teach math at the college level.)
Because he’s about to complete his degree there.
My daughter has an AA from the local community college. She then went on to get her BS at a four year college. By taking two years’ worth of courses at the CC, she was able to save quite a lot of money in tuition. Plus, of course, she has another diploma to hang on the wall. 
First sentence of my OP… I’m transferring to university in the fall, and this is my last class at the CC. I’m there because I dropped out of university the first time around (for reasons which are complex, but finances were a big part of it), and had not quite completed the core requirements and 60 units which California public schools are now requiring for transfer. Due to budget cuts they no longer accept lower-division transfers, so this is the only way I was getting in.
Even though the academic environment there leaves something to be desired, I am still putting forth full effort into my studies and generally enjoy being back in school. I think I will enjoy it even more when I am working on my major in the fall, so even if this class is terrible, it’s but a minor roadbump on the way to my goal.