A Professor's Pointers for Success in College: 21 Easy-to-Follow Tips

[cobrat]

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@oldmom4896

MiamiDAP, we have a friend, a graduate of my daughter’s test-in high school in NYC, who attended the same college that your daughter attended and did considerably better there than she did in high school.

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<p>Your D’s friend’s experience in college vs high school was the same as mine and most HS classmates. </p>

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@coase

1. Come prepared with questions. I had one student recently who could not get this. He came in, asked a couple of questions, and then started flipping through his notes. After a minute or so, I asked whether he had any more questions. He then asked, incredulously, “Aren’t these your office hours?” Well, yes they are. And there may be other students outside waiting to see me. Even if not, you could hang out on the sofa down the hall for 15 minutes and come up with more question while I go back to answering e-mails from your classmates. Try to use your time and mine efficiently.</p>

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<li><p>Do not arrive early. People tend to schedule their time in blocks. For example, I will take the 30 minutes before office hours to answer e-mails, eat lunch, grab a coffee, or simply remind myself what questions I put on the latest problem set. Showing up 10 minutes early and saying, “I was in the area so I thought I would stop in,” verges on thoughtless. If you were hosting a dinner party, you would not want guests arriving early. The same is true with office hours. (At least with office hours, we can and will ask the student to wait outside for a few more minutes.)</p></li>
<li><p>Do not arrive with 5 minutes left in office hours and a handful of questions. If your schedule does not allow you to arrive earlier, send an e-mail explaining this and ask whether the faculty member could see you later. I will always extend my office hours for a student who extends me this courtesy.

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<p>While I understand and sympathize with the reasoning behind rules #1-3, they wouldn’t go over well in more student-centered campus culture where most students tend to be more free-spirited like my LAC. </p>

<p>Considering all the complaints I still hear from recent graduates from my LAC about how their grad schools in larger R1 universities are “too bureaucratized” and “less student centered” even for some grad students*, it is very likely Profs who insist strictly on such rules may not get hired due to negative feedback from student reps on the faculty hiring committee or for those who didn’t get tenure, get weeded out by negative student evaluations/complaints about Profs being “not student centered” or being “too aloof”. </p>

<p>One illustration of this was one classmate & Faculty hiring committee student rep who wrote a short piece recounting how they eliminated one prospective faculty member from further consideration because they along with others on the hiring committee found he from interviews and from observing him teaching a couple of sample classes that he was too aloof and demonstrated he wasn’t interested in being a student-centered faculty member. </p>

<p>She went on to say their impressions of him was that he’d be much more suited to being a faculty member at a research-centered university rather than a more teaching/student oriented LAC. </p>

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<li>Common complaint among MIA/MPA students at Columbia’s SIPA. Part of this is also due to the “[insert name of small LAC/LAC-like university in suburban/rural campus] bubble” one tends to be ensconced in for 4+ years.<br></li>
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