Professors Behaving Badly?
These last few weeks have had two notable examples of staff misconduct at the University level. And I have been pretty unyielding in advocating for the students: I have seen one student grow and trust his account; the other is a pretty clear cut case of bullying.
That said, I cannot think of any professors that I have personally had contact with, either in my own education or with respect to another’s, whose behavior has been unprofessional. In fact, my own experiences have been with quite a few exceptional professors, whose integrity and professionalism were unassailable.
I have had a couple professors who just didn’t care; their conduct was still professional.
It is my opinion that the vast majority of professors have interest in their students’ success, and that it is only a few here and there who waver.
I fear that the publicity of these two latest accounts will cause an acidic response toward professors here on the forum.
I have seen similar phenomenon towards interviewers. The latest interviewer thread is only the latest in a long-building series of abuse towards those interviewers asking dumb or misunderstood questions. Perhaps. But we should not conclude the interviewer needs a round of abuse for endeavoring to do his job.
I have noticed this bad attitude in myself. And I don’t like it.
tl;dr
Let us not begin conversations by assuming the worst of people.
That said, I cannot think of any professors that I have personally had contact with, either in my own education or with respect to another’s, whose behavior has been unprofessional. In fact, my own experiences have been with quite a few exceptional professors, whose integrity and professionalism were unassailable.
I have had a couple professors who just didn’t care; their conduct was still professional.
It is my opinion that the vast majority of professors have interest in their students’ success, and that it is only a few here and there who waver.
I fear that the publicity of these two latest accounts will cause an acidic response toward professors here on the forum.
I have seen similar phenomenon towards interviewers. The latest interviewer thread is only the latest in a long-building series of abuse towards those interviewers asking dumb or misunderstood questions. Perhaps. But we should not conclude the interviewer needs a round of abuse for endeavoring to do his job.
I have noticed this bad attitude in myself. And I don’t like it.
tl;dr
Let us not begin conversations by assuming the worst of people.
Yes, I agree as well.
It reminds me of a forum I frequent for a (not computer related at all) hobby. People buy a brand_x item. Lots of people, the item has been around for many decades. 99.99% of them have no problem, so they spend their time using the item (its an outdoor related activity) and do not get on the internet looking for forums to talk about it. Then there is that tiny % who have a problem, and near 100% of that small % get online and post a LOT of negative "it broke" posts. Now joe comes along to research the item, sees the forum, and then sees a sackful of negative posts and he is like 'is this a piece of junk' ? .. etc... the issue is just the people that have problems make more noise than happy people. Tens of thousands of students have a positive experience, but the forums get the 10 unhappy people... etc... just human nature. Forum complaint posts are going to be a lot more common than people posting how awesome the universe is...
It reminds me of a forum I frequent for a (not computer related at all) hobby. People buy a brand_x item. Lots of people, the item has been around for many decades. 99.99% of them have no problem, so they spend their time using the item (its an outdoor related activity) and do not get on the internet looking for forums to talk about it. Then there is that tiny % who have a problem, and near 100% of that small % get online and post a LOT of negative "it broke" posts. Now joe comes along to research the item, sees the forum, and then sees a sackful of negative posts and he is like 'is this a piece of junk' ? .. etc... the issue is just the people that have problems make more noise than happy people. Tens of thousands of students have a positive experience, but the forums get the 10 unhappy people... etc... just human nature. Forum complaint posts are going to be a lot more common than people posting how awesome the universe is...
@jonnin Yep. I'm a "guru" in a Lenovo forum, which just means I'm an affiliate, and tons of people with issues are there. They have the product, they complain, they see other people have complained about the same issue, and then they think the issue must be prevalent on all machines of this model, not realizing they are the outliers.
However, generally, most experiences with a professor are just going to be OK for most people. Either the professor cares or they don't, either they're competent or they aren't. I've yet to had a "Wow!" experience, and I assume they aren't as common as simply alright experiences. Perhaps not even as common as bad experiences, but sometimes I find that bad experiences might simply just be the students themselves. However, I use ratemyprofessors.com , where if a professor is actually good they'll be flooded with positive reviews unlike forums. The number of bad professors just seem to outweigh the number of good ones.
Universities are businesses, and they have it good. Imagine opening a business and finding the government is literally paying people to go give you money. Simply, students end up being a secondary concern many times, with tenured professors who are just there for research purposes. I had a Chinese professor for Calculus I, barely spoke English. Only way to pass that class was to hope for a large enough curve of the final grade that you pass. I actually got a "D" on the FINAL and the TA told me "that's actually a pretty good grade compared to everyone else's." I could write all day about bad professor experiences. However, ask me about good experiences I've had and I'll certainly have some to share, but there's simply no comparison with sheer numbers.
I try not to be biased towards professors though. I stick to my usual way of thinking that I wont assume anything unless given a reason to, everyone is different.
However, generally, most experiences with a professor are just going to be OK for most people. Either the professor cares or they don't, either they're competent or they aren't. I've yet to had a "Wow!" experience, and I assume they aren't as common as simply alright experiences. Perhaps not even as common as bad experiences, but sometimes I find that bad experiences might simply just be the students themselves. However, I use ratemyprofessors.com , where if a professor is actually good they'll be flooded with positive reviews unlike forums. The number of bad professors just seem to outweigh the number of good ones.
Universities are businesses, and they have it good. Imagine opening a business and finding the government is literally paying people to go give you money. Simply, students end up being a secondary concern many times, with tenured professors who are just there for research purposes. I had a Chinese professor for Calculus I, barely spoke English. Only way to pass that class was to hope for a large enough curve of the final grade that you pass. I actually got a "D" on the FINAL and the TA told me "that's actually a pretty good grade compared to everyone else's." I could write all day about bad professor experiences. However, ask me about good experiences I've had and I'll certainly have some to share, but there's simply no comparison with sheer numbers.
I try not to be biased towards professors though. I stick to my usual way of thinking that I wont assume anything unless given a reason to, everyone is different.
To avoid that sampling bias, at my university reviews at the end of each course were mandatory, and students would leave feedback both on the course as a whole (contents, schedules, etc.) and on individual professors and TAs. I can't vouch for other people, but at least for myself, the fact that those reviews were considered a formal part of the process encouraged me to attempt to leave high quality feedback.
IIRC a professor's rating was public, so students could use that information to make decisions such as on which shift of a course to sign up on, if there was more than one.
I'm not saying that's perfect, but I think the fact that *everyone* had to leave a review meant that it tended towards fairness, so a single bad interaction with a student should not significantly affect the rating of a great professor.
IIRC a professor's rating was public, so students could use that information to make decisions such as on which shift of a course to sign up on, if there was more than one.
I'm not saying that's perfect, but I think the fact that *everyone* had to leave a review meant that it tended towards fairness, so a single bad interaction with a student should not significantly affect the rating of a great professor.
We also have to give reviews, but its only for the professor to read "anonymously" and for the university itself. If a student wants to know how the professor has been doing, there's no choice other than to use something like ratemyprofessor. Good idea your university had to make their ratings public.
What helios is saying is that there is a selection bias for things like ratemyprofessor.
People with a positive or neutral experience are less likely to search out and post on things like ratemyprofessor. Moreover, it is biased by a student's awareness of the class, which in my experience with classmates, is often fairly uninformed.
It's like an old Lil' Folks cartoon where Charlie Brown and Schroeder were laughing at a newspaper article. Linus comes by and asks why. Their response was "Because we don't understand it."
People with a positive or neutral experience are less likely to search out and post on things like ratemyprofessor. Moreover, it is biased by a student's awareness of the class, which in my experience with classmates, is often fairly uninformed.
It's like an old Lil' Folks cartoon where Charlie Brown and Schroeder were laughing at a newspaper article. Linus comes by and asks why. Their response was "Because we don't understand it."
Yea, I understand that. The fact that it's a mandatory review gets rid of the fact that negative experiences tend to make people want to speak out about it, especially on review sites.
However, for my university at least, there are some professors with tons of reviews and they're all positive (as well as the opposite!). In fact, the website seems pretty popular and people go on there often for good and bad reviews. The reviews can also be nice since they tend to go into more details than simply "he was alright" or "she grades easy".
Sure it's not perfect, but it's better than running in blind. I tried to stay away from the Calc professor I mentioned earlier, because his rating was as low as you can expect a rating to go. I take his class, around 50% of the students fail (he said that's how much of the class he's trying to fail in order to weed out the "weak" students), and those who pass do so with a mediocre grade and even then only because of a huge curve. But the original professor I chose for the class got switched out with him last minute.
So far, it's been decently accurate and a life savor. Though I know it's far from perfect.
However, for my university at least, there are some professors with tons of reviews and they're all positive (as well as the opposite!). In fact, the website seems pretty popular and people go on there often for good and bad reviews. The reviews can also be nice since they tend to go into more details than simply "he was alright" or "she grades easy".
Sure it's not perfect, but it's better than running in blind. I tried to stay away from the Calc professor I mentioned earlier, because his rating was as low as you can expect a rating to go. I take his class, around 50% of the students fail (he said that's how much of the class he's trying to fail in order to weed out the "weak" students), and those who pass do so with a mediocre grade and even then only because of a huge curve. But the original professor I chose for the class got switched out with him last minute.
So far, it's been decently accurate and a life savor. Though I know it's far from perfect.
If you're witnessing professors behaving badly, what will you do about it? What behavior are you alleging?
You know what would be great? If a site had an unsatisfied out of students taught percentage, so instead of it being only posts of bed experiences, it makes a ratio of the number of students who complain to the number of students he taught, allowing us to take into account the people who were satisfied and didn’t talk about them. Thanks world 😞
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