Professor Issues

Being a college student has opened my eyes on how repetitive education is. I mean some professors have reasons to their methods and others have absolutely no idea how to teach college students. I am practically an adult and paying to go to school, yet some professors think they are teaching kids. I have this English professor that would start a sentence and call on of us in the class to finish the sentence. It could be about any topic in the world and we would fix what she wrote incorrect on the board to teach grammar, cool right? Wrong. Instead of talking to us like we were adults, she would start out saying, "JOHN DOE! Finish the sentence. Okay, now class, what ... (Pause) ...did I ... (Pause) ... do wrong ... (Pause) ... in writing ... (pause) ... this sentence ... (pause) ... that John ... (pause) ... gave us?" She talked so slow and I swear she was killing the brain cells that controlled my needs of motivation.

In high school, they teach you how to upgrade your vocabulary to college level. This same lady assigned us an essay. In my essay, I had used the verb, "converse." A week later, she returned the paper and circled he word and drew a big question mark and wrote "easier to say talk." The next paper I wrote, I did what she said and took the easy way and that lady gave it back to me personally with an ear-to-ear grin. Nervously, I looked down and she gave me C- and wrote use higher vocabulary, this sounds like you’re still in high school! It made me so mad that I got up and left in the middle of class. I went to straight to my academic counselor to see if there were any other classes open. She looked hard and told me there was not any and asked me what the problem was. I explained to her the unfairness and showed her the two different comments. She took my graded essays and made copies of them, whited out my name, and gave me back the original.

The next day I received an email asking to stop by the Dean of Education. When I got there, he had the copies of my papers. He had asked for my side of the story. He took notes while I talked and said, “Thank you, you may leave.” Very confused, I left and continued out through the semester without a problem. On the day of the English final, the professor had asked me to meet her at her office after class. Just saying ok, I finished my final. After class, I went and she had apologized for the trouble she had caused me and wished me luck while here in college. She said that she was trying to teach us that life was confusing and unfair and that we needed to push through anyways. Now that I understood why her class was terrible, I turned to leave her office and noticed that she had started to pack everything. That’s when it hit me, I got her sacked. I went straight to the Dean’s office again and asked him if it was my fault that the professor lost her job. He told me no it was not and that he had other complaints about her after me. I asked him how if I didn’t tell anyone about what happened. He said that it was going to be okay and not to worry about it. He basically was being a politician.

I left campus the next day and ended the semester class with an acceptable grade.