Confronted professor for he misunderstanding my work. Didn't end well.

College Majors Math/Computer Science Majors
1

In one math/computer science class we were asked to redo one famous math problem.(Sorry for not specifying it as I don’t want to be identified.) In class, professor taught us a way of doing it and I’m pretty sure that’s how everyone else in my class did it, as they were just coping the way we were taught in class and handed it in.

But because I had learned a lot about probability on my own, I did this problem a different way and I’m 100% certain I got the correct results and the correct conclusion.

The professor didn’t understand my work and marked that my figures were wrong even though I generated the same conclusion. So I went up to him after class a few days ago trying to get him understand.
Unfortunately it didn’t end well. Before letting me explaining myself he was already so ready to start “here’s why you were wrong… blabla”

The moment he started talking I knew for sure that he did NOT understand what I did and he did NOT know anything about probability himself. So I kinda forced him to listen to me, which he did.

After he understood my work, he started saying “Oh I never said your technique was wrong. It’s just you didn’t give me the figures we needed. That’s where you were wrong.”

But the question of this project is to propose that in a certain scenario, we should choose to do A or B. As long as I still concluded that we should choose A (which is the correct conclusion) and provided accurate mathematical calculations and figures, I don’t see why he could say I was wrong just because I didn’t prove it by the way he showed us in class.

I knew that he marked me wrong in the first place because he didn’t understand my work at all. I wrote out everything nicely on the paper with diagrams and everything, so I’m pretty upset when I got the results back and realized that I actually got a lower score than others for doing extra work.

He even said this to me: “You only got 30 seconds to prove to a decision maker. Now, we’ve spent 15 minutes already and you still can’t explain yourself well. How would you think your work was good enough?”

And that, made me SO MAD. Sorry for being so vague here but I’m pretty sure if I lay out everything here, whoever knows about probability will know I’m right. (p.s. this course isn’t probability. But this question is.) And it wasn’t that hard either!! That’s why I felt so bad about it; it’s like I was punished by being too smart than what the professor was asking for.

It also scared me that this argument with him could possibly affect my grades as in this class we were just doing several projects and he’s the one giving out grades.

Maybe it’s a very common thing in universities for students to get into arguments with their professors. But as a minority female I’m just not used to it. I’m not used to being on “bad terms” with professors, and that makes me feel uncomfortable. Or did I do the right thing to defend myself, even though it didn’t end well?

Any thought would be appreciated. Thanks.

2

I think you did the right thing by going to the professor, but at this point you need to let it go. There’s no use arguing with a professor.

For what it’s worth, last semester in my CS course, my professor marked a proof on an open-book, open-note midterm wrong because he didn’t understand what I was doing (he was a CS professor and not math, even admitted he was not good with math in a previous lecture). I knew my proof was correct because we had done the same proof in my math course and the proof I used on the CS test was the one my math professor wrote. It was a much better way of proving it, but he wouldn’t give me the points back. I tried explaining it to him but it became obvious fairly quickly that he didn’t understand the math and logic behind it, so I let it go (my parents thought I should have had my math professor talk to him, but it wasn’t worth it IMO). I still ended up with an A in the course.

3

The problem is that you went on the attack. You gave him no option and he went on the defensive.

Even though your procedure garnered the same answer, that’s not what he originally wanted. Also, the way in which you’ve presented yourself here, indicates that your English skills are not strong, so he may have misunderstood you. He was also trying to teach you a different way to do it, which is what the instruction was supposed to do and that is the grade that he must present.

In any college class, your grade is partially based on how you listen to instruction and follow the steps. Even if you disagree, the grades come from the professors. English classes are FAMOUS for this. Every English teacher instructs in his/her preferred way. You just nod your head and learn what they expect for a grade.

When you are ready to graduate, you have to get internships and/or letters of recommendation from your professors. If you are known to force people to listen to you, you will not be given many referrals nor recommendations. This is tough. When you have your diploma, and are applying for jobs or grad school, not having professor recommendations will be a significant weakness on your resume.

Oh, caution: being proud will only get you so far-

Lose some of that pride because it will come back to bite you. If you want to be right, get your Ph.D, and teach the course.

4

" I tried explaining it to him but it became obvious fairly quickly that he didn’t understand math and logic behind it"

This is exactly how I felt too! And yeah he’s a Math/CS professor, probably more on the CS side too.

Thank you for sharing your experience.

5

I think you should take a lesson from this, which you clearly aren’t doing yet, so reflect after you settle down. You are complaining that he was not listening to you but it seems to me that you were not listening to him. It sort of reminds me of my daughter in 8th grade always trying to solve problems in a complicated way because she was too bored and the teacher being a bit frustrated with that. It is within the prof’s purview not to have to spend time working through it with you. I am hearing that he prefers simpler and more elegant but you didn’t want to hear it, you just wanted to be right. Maybe you are right or not. It is too bad he didn’t want to work through it. Does the class have a TA or does the prof have a grad student who might be willing and have time for that?

You really have to feel out a prof to see if an argument is constructive or not. I would think no, you usually don’t want to do that. Asking to work through it is fine, saying you think your solution is correct and you would like a chance to explain it is fine. That isn’t arguing. He gave you 15 minutes on one problem so I don’t think you can say you were short changed. I understand you aren’t satisfied and wanted to be shown where you went wrong or have him conclude you are correct. I don’t see why you should be on bad terms with him. Maybe after you aren’t ‘mad’ any more you can act normally.

6

Your English skills may have prevented his understanding of your method.
To ease the relationship, you need to apologize for the method in which you attacked him.

(I want to apologize for my outburst, thank you for taking the time to explain what you were looking for). Do not say anything else!!

You cannot become angry and proud. This person holds your future grade in his hands.

You have to present yourself in a mature manner when you want someone to listen to your explanation. Arguing/confronting will only decrease your grade.

Is it unfair? YES. Does this matter to the university or to the professor? NO.
You only have to do this for a couple of years. Bite the bullet. Keep your pride in check. Do the work as they want, not what you want.

7

I think the title of your thread says it all. Why did you need to “confront” the professor. It sounds like you went in with an “I’m right / you’re wrong” attitude. You get more flies with honey than you do with vinegar…

8

Why did you present your method in the first place? Did you forget his method? Or did you want to do something different? In some classes you could be praised for providing a different method. But in some classes you are expected to use the common method.

9

Thank you for your response. He was very eager to start “heres why you were wrong…” (and at that point he totally didnt understand my work; he just simply thinks I was wrong.
At that situation, shouldn’t I try to clarify myself?

And my way of solving is not any more complicated than his either. In class he presented a solution, which he extracted from a mathematician’s work, but he actually kinda mispresented it. The figure he got was actually a conditional probability p(alb). And what I got was p(a). So we pretty much had the same thing to prove that one choice is better than the other. But the professor, before I explained to him, didnt know much about conditional probability, so that’s why he just looked at my figure and thought I was wrong. My method was also very simple, I just drew out a tree of all the possible outcomes and simply show each outcome’s probabilities. So imagine my shock when I realized he didn’t even understand a simple probability tree.

10

Is it possible that you didn’t explain/demonstrate your solution correctly (both in writing and in person)? Assignments aren’t always about being the smartest person in the room or proving that you are right and everyone else is wrong. Often, an important part is being able to communicate your ideas to another person. Clearly, you failed at this–twice. And I think that’s an important lesson to be learned. Regardless how you feel about your professor’s intelligence, he has been doing this far longer than you have. He may have favored streamlined and elegant solutions. Perhaps, your solution was more cumbersome or confusing. Maybe you left out steps that you thought were “obvious” or didn’t include information that the reader needed to follow your train of thought. Maybe you were just writing the solution for the wrong audience. Knowing your audience is often discussed in English classes, but it’s equally important in all disciplines. Or maybe what he really wanted was for you to prove that you understood the original proof and the reasoning behind it, not design your own (potentially incorrect or cumbersome or lengthy or confusing) proof unless it was better than the original.

None of us will know if your solution was right or wrong or confusing or whatever, but I can say that I thought your approach to your professor was a little misguided. Getting frustrated and belligerent is not the way to approach ANY conversation, let alone a conversation with your professor. I think you went into the situation with the attitude that “I’m right, isn’t it obvious? I deserve more credit for being amazing” and that might have rubbed your professor the wrong way. And then when your professor tried to counter, you adopted an attitude that your professor was an idiot. Even if you were completely 100% in the right, in a perfect world, your professor would acknowledge that, but in the real world, some people can get really defensive when they are approached in such a manner as you did. It might not have even been anything you said, but just how you came off (in your body language, in your tone of voice, in the words you chose). It’s something to consider when you are interacting with others in the future (especially if you’re having this conversation with someone like your boss in the future). Sometimes, you just have to let it go.

11

Office hours vs after lecture might have been a better spot to have this conversation (no audience, he might be less defensive). And it does sound like you went into it with an aggressive attitude. Trying to tell a tenured professor that you have a better way to do something requires some tact (and avoids embarrassment if you are wrong, too). Also… math isn’t always about the right answer. If he is looking to teach you more about proofs, and you insist on using probability trees, you may be missing the point of the lesson.

I would drop it.

12

Im sorry for appearing to be “proud” here. In real life im actually a very quiet and easy-going girl. Barely anyone would describe me as proud. And I normally get along with most of my professors and bosses.
Me saying “anyone who understands probability will know I was right” is just to show how simple my work is. All I did was to draw a tree of all the possible outcomes (one of the most easiest ways to solve a probability problem).

I really didnt think my professor would not know about probability. I really didn’t. So im sorry for being so aggressive on here but please just try to imagine my shock and frustration… :confused:

And the word “confront” was not a good choice. I agree. Actually when I first approached him I was very polite and sweet. But I really had to kinda force him to listen to me or I wouldn’t even get a chance to explain anything at all.

In the end I realized there was no use arguing with him, so I still ended the conversation nicely, something like “yes I totally understand blablabla, thank you so much.”

But I felt really bad after walking away. I felt like I shouldn’t have come up to him at all because nothing good came from it. :confused:

I just hope you guys understand that me being proud or extra defensive here was a result from my frustration. Im not like this in real life.

13

In my mind, a tree is a primitive way to draw out a probability problem; I can see how some professors want you to learn the calculation way. Unless his way was WRONG (resulting in a wrong answer), consider that he is trying to teach you a method, not necessarily just want you to get to the right solution. If you are that much better than he is, you will be a lauded PhD in your own right someday – but make sure you know what he was trying to communicate before assuming you have a better mousetrap.

14

This thought sort of builds on what @intparent said. Would it help to send the professor an email asking what he wants to see on tests? That is, does he want an answer that shows you were listening in class? Or is he willing to entertain an alternative solution that (I’ll take your word for it) demonstrates equal (or greater) mastery of the subject. You would not be replaying the dispute but seeking guidance for the future.

15

Agree with intparent. Every year, CC gets this sort of question, which boils down to: the prof wanted me to do it this way and I wanted to do it in another way. See what you can learn from this.

16

Hmmm. If the message is that independent thinking is discouraged, I’m not so sure I agree. I guess I was thinking along the lines of: “Dear Professor X, I’m sorry we seemed to get off on the wrong foot the other day. I think my real question, which I probably didn’t state clearly, was whether you want test questions answered in term of the processes explained in class or whether alternative approaches are acceptable.”

17

I think you are still not listening and are still defensive.

Your class answer may have been correct, but your attitude reeks of “I know more than you, so that makes me right”.

You won’t be successful in your classes and career if you can’t learn when to back down. You didn’t do the assignment the way in which it was presented. You did it your way. The problem with that is that your future employer won’t appreciate your attitude. If you plan on getting a job in CS, you have to complete it the way the customer wants it. There are specifications for each contract in CS products. If you complete it with an equitable answer, great, but don’t expect the contractor to compensate your company for the time you spent, if they didn’t write that in the spec. Specs show EVERY step and job number. If you do things your own way, you will lose business for your employer. Unless you plan on starting your own company and not having any clients/customers, then do what you want.

I disagree. I think you are realizing that most of the posters are saying that your method was really not conducive to your relationship with the class. You seem to be swimming upstream, hoping that someone will condone your behavior and are frustrated that people are reflecting opinions that are not in agreement with your method. Sorry but I think your grade will be affected.

18

I think it would be better to offer OP ways of moving forward rather than chastising her.

19

She needs to apologize to the professor, not admitting guilt or anything, but moving forward. If she can swallow and move on, then it will show the professor that she’s willing to work with him.

20

Any comments on my proposed email? Stupid or helpful. I offered it as a way of saving some pride but moving forward. howed interest with, from an early age.