Yet another school complaint, by me. So I’m in this horribly dull and abysmally easy Intro to Literary Studies class that’s required for an English or Creative Writing major. We’re supposed to write five small essays, one of which gets turned into a five-page essay. I wrote a small essay on Kate Chopin’s “The Storm” which I’m going to revise for Monday.
I got the small essay back, and I noticed that the professor has not made ONE comment on its content! But the fucker went through the essay and MARKED EVERY GODDAMN SENTENCE BREAK and wrote in the margin “two spaces between sentences”!!! Not once did he note any weak points or other places where improvement was needed. News flash: Students and writers do not improve as a result of grammer nitpicking. They don’t give out Nobel or Pulitzer Prizes for MLA Format. You know why they don’t? BECAUSE THE REAL IMPORTANCE IS THE FUCKING CONTENT, which you so choose to ignore.
And there’s more. Check out this sentence I wrote.
The correction: The 's on the end of “Alcee’s” has a circle and a slash through it.
Did you even READ that sentence, you idiot? If you had, you’d notice that you just changed it to mean that the guy she had sex with did not know about it!!! I now understand why a lot of the English majors around here chain-smoke.
sigghhhhh* Two more months, two more months, two more months…
So you want a second opinion? OK, it’s passive voice, too.
I feel your pain Dao: I had a course in college where the prof wouldn’t give a single comment on content, yet still found a way to quantify our efforts to an exact percentage! (not just a letter grade). That surprised me because it was for a small seminar class. Perhaps you’re not getting feedback since it’s a huge course required for lots of people?
You know, you’d learn more posting your essay on Cafe Society. I’ve read and participated in a few critique sessions. I’ve suggested titles and judged posters, and if I had time at home to go on-line, I’d be participating in the writing sessions here.
I’ve taken university-level courses in literature and “creative” (gag–I HATE this phrase) writing, and I’ve found better criticism and support on this board. Sheesh.
Pathetic, isn’t it? Who is it that has the creative writing MB? We need to send more Dopers over there.
At least it will be over soon, and next semester I can get into a class I actually want to take. 190 courses (that’s what I’m in) are shit.
Oh yeah, and here’s something I forgot to put in the OP.
And professor, don’t wing any more of this Deconstructionist shit at my classmates, who are inexperienced freshmen and sophomores who don’t like English. You’re only confusing them and making them hate it more. Don’t make them read obscure literary criticism unless you are prepared to explain to them what literary criticism IS. About half of them think it’s akin to movie reviews.
My five worst professors (in no particular order):
[ul][li]The journalism professor who took off marks from my story about the growing number of homeless in Montreal because I didn’t talk about “people who are homeless because they don’t want a job.”[/li][li]The Evangelical Christian English professor who’s making us read nothing but novels of Christian redemption.[/li][li]The history professor who ordered the text books late, gave the class entirely in Marxist jargon, and sprung a surprise midterm on us.[/li][li]The French professor who, every once in awhile, decided to change the hours of the class, usually to time when I couldn’t make it. She was unwilling to make accomodations for me.[/li][li]The creative writing professor who made us by the one text that included some of his own work, and then refused one of my stories on the grounds that “science fiction isn’t real writing.”[/ul][/li]I know I could remember more if I weren’t so tired. In three majors at two universities, and a wide assortment of electives, I’ve gotten a taste of total incompetence in every field.
Problem is, professors are required to have a total command of facts in their subject. They’re required to know how to teach, or have any people skills.
Daowajan, you should show your imbecile professor a basic typesetting book. Two spaces are most certainly not required between sentences when using a proportional font. (They’re not strictly required when using a monospace font either, but it looks nicer.)
Daowajan, you should show your imbecile professor a basic typesetting book. Two spaces are most certainly not required between sentences when using a proportional font. (They’re not strictly required when using a monospace font either, but it looks nicer.)
I’m ready to kill my copyediting tutor who is teaching us proofreading instead of copyediting and who gave us this huge assignment full of stuff she hasn’t fucking taught us! The classic was last week when I asked her why she thought the copyediting part of the assignment would take 10 hours and I did it in under an hour and was wondering WTF I had missed and she admitted she hadn’t READ the piece of work!
Unfortunately, Hamish, this ain’t the case unless you’re attending a liberal arts college. Most profs are hired because they are doing interesting and original research, getting published (thus the dictum “publish or perish”), and taking care of their grad students. Where I went to school (a state university), I was fortunate that nearly all my profs really cared about their undergrads; many of my friends at “Big Name Ivy U” were highly disappointed with their profs’ attitudes toward them. Teaching ability, though a nice bonus for a department, is not very high on the priority list when hiring or giving tenure. As for profs with well-developed people skills, I’d say they are definitely the exception rather than the rule.
PLEASE STOP INSULTING EVERYTHING ABOUT THE UNITED STATES YOU CAN POSSIBLY THINK OF. You’re entitled to your opinions and everything, but a classroom atmosphere where we’re not allowed to express ours does not make for very effective learning. We know you’re a socialist, a feminist, a pacifist, and that you grew up in Europe, where the educational system and general social structure are infinitely better than in our crappy little 225-year-old democracy, but we are fucking sick of hearing you say things like “If I see another American flag I’m going to puke” when a punk kid pinned one to his jacket and “Another military fan!” when another kid told you about the WWII dogfight simulator game he likes to play. I’d like to see how you’d react if your goddamn country got bombed completely out of the blue (and not at the end of the most terrible war in history, which by the way, your country started) - you’d be hopping mad too at the beginning.
And stop coming up to us while we’re discussing things in class and eavesdrop on our conversation, and stop leaning over your desk and sticking your butt up in the air like a cat in heat. For a feminist, you sure as hell seem like you want a man in your pants.
I hope you some day get to live in your socialist paradise and the gripe to us about how repressive it is just like the regime in East Germany that we’ve been studying for WEEKS now. Did you learn anything in history class, you addle-brained Commie-felching Teutonic whore?
Note: I love Germany, and nearly all other Germans I have met have been incredibly nice people. I just can’t stand this one.
My stats prof assigns us big, scary assignments weekly. That would not be so bad except he doesn’t teach us how to do them till the next week. So all we have to go on are the book and his crappy class notes he posts before the lectures. He explained his reasoning one day: He wanted to make sure we understood the material so we could follow the lecture. Hey, that’s great, but the lecture doesn’t cost us 150 points if we don’t understand it.
1/2 the class failed the test. (Including me) He wasn’t gonna curve it, but he decided to “give us a break” and then berated us for not studying hard enough. Um, correct me if I’m wrong, but if 1/2 of the class fails your test, * it’s not the class’ fault!* It’s your damn fault for making an impossible test and not teaching us how to do it! Grrrrr. Anyway, I studied my ass of for a week with another girl in the class and a guy who used to be a stats major!
BTW I got a C- after the curve. I’m getting As and Bs in my other classes. You do the math.
when i was a freshman in high school, i had this evil typing teacher. yes, typing. amazingly enough in 1995 we were still learning how to use typewriters in high school. they were nice typewriters, with wordprocessing (one line at a time, woo-hoo!), but we weren’t allowed to use that.
anyway, that’s not my gripe. the teacher was something like four-million years old and had trouble hearing and speaking clearly. yet she insisted on giving weekly verbal spelling tests. she would stand at the front of the class spouting off words that we had to type in list format, spelled correctly. the major problem being that no one could understand a damn word the woman said. and it was forbidden to ask her any questions during the test, including “could you please repeat that?” several students each week had to throw their tests away and recieve Fs for having the gall to ask what she’d said. the rest of us simply received Fs for not being able to spell “mphben.”
she also had a tendency to play favourites, and had it out for one of my friends in the class. i have no idea why, but the woman loved me and constantly gave me Bs despite the fact that i did no work whatsoever. in fact, i spent most of my time writing stories about evil things happening to the teacher. and i used the word processing feature.
my friend, on the other hand, was the type to follow all of the rules and do all of her work. she was, in short, a clean-cut straight-a student. and the bitch flunked her for no reason. she used to yell at this poor girl accusing her of doing things that i was doing (mostly using the word processing, which makes a pretty distinctive sound), and when i would protest that it was me, she would tell me to butt out.
[nitpick]Passive voice isn’t informal; it’s just frowned upon in certain disciplines. If physics students were to write their lab reports in the active voice, they would not be graded kindly.[/nitpick]
It was last spring, but my computer architecture professor seemed bound and determined to come up with the weirdest test format ever. We had a test every two weeks, so he had lots of chances to come up with bizarre stuff. There was one test whose format I couldn’t explain to you guys on a dare.
My Physical Geography professor seems like a nice enough guy most of the time. He gives us recommendations on places in the US to visit. He encourages us all to take road trips before we make a splash in the real world. He’s pretty cool.
Except there are certain things about the class (about 100 people) that he hates, and he lets us know. This is an example of his chosen way of expressing his gripes:
It’s more disruptive when he breaks off midsentence to scream like a five-year-old than someone eating a bag of chips or talking quietly in the back row.
I’ve had a succession of wonderful English professors at UMBC. I can’t complain about any of them. If anything, they’ve been exemplary.
