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<p>Yes, but if the machines at my gym don’t work, I’m going to feel ripped off, and I won’t be able to get as fit as others who are members of gyms with high-quality equipment.</p>
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<p>I think this analogy is totally off. </p>
<p>Rather…a Prof with a foreign accent IMHO is more akin to having a no-nonsense hardass as your physical training instructor rather than your usual friendly easier going trainer. Serious athletes or those into physical training tend to prefer the former rather than the latter. </p>
<p>Wonder why that’s not always the case in the academic realm…</p>
<p>That is ridiculous, cobrat. An accent makes a prof a more serious trainer?</p>
<p>It really comes down to one’s individual learning style, all of which are valid and should be respected.</p>
<p>I was the “auditory” type who made the effort to attend every class, took good notes, attended all the review sessions, was able to glean what was important to the prof that way, and as a result I did not have to study all that much and got pretty good grades. Given my style, I would be upset about getting profs I couldn’t understand, because to me, having to self-study from a book is boring.</p>
<p>Assuming the concern is about legitimate communication issues, there will be very few such problems and the difference in probability between different schools is not large enough to be a factor.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if a person is going to make bigoted judgments whenever a foreign instructor walks into the room, I recommend against research universities.</p>
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<p>The quality of equipment at gyms has little to do with how fit the members are. At least those are my observations at the many gyms that I’ve been around.</p>
<p>The question of accent may a distraction from the underlying problem, which is teaching style. I agree with mathinokc that it’s not hard to get used to a professor’s accent in a couple of class sessions if that is the ONLY issue with the teaching. “Accent” has become shorthand for other issues. It’s unfortunate that many American students now associate foreign accents with poor teaching, but I’m not sure that it’s plain old bigotry or something more complicated at work.</p>
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<p>I did say that if the machines don’t work, not just that they are lower quality.</p>
<p>BCEagle, Do you think the average student will get the same level of education regardless of the quality of his/her profs? I know some people think this is true. I think it is possible, but probably not as likely.</p>
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<p>One of the gyms where I work out (I have access to six) has broken equipment and equipment that is ten, twenty, thirty years old. We have old and rusty hand weights and new weights too. You can get just as good a workout with the old weights that you can with the new stuff. We have a bunch of tables or platforms which look like they’re 30 years old. Just metal tubing frame with a piece of wood on top. You use what you can and work around the stuff that isn’t working.</p>
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<p>I really don’t know what an average college student is.</p>
<p>I see a lot of issues in college courses. Son did well in that he learned the material and got good grades regardless of the professor. Our daughter hasn’t done as well with bad professors but she doesn’t work anywhere near as hard as our son does. My personal opinion is that kids that put in a strong effort to get good grades and learn the material are less dependent on the quality of the professor. Those that need more spoon-feeding are more dependent on the quality of the professor.</p>
<p>Our son attends a sink-or-swim type school. Our daughter attends more of a hand-holding school.</p>
<p>i agree with #64. as an undergrad, i had a professor from japan who spoke perfect english but with a japanese accent. i couldn’t believe the rudeness of my classmates who frequently sighed very loudly, claiming they couldn’t understand her. it was ridiculous! </p>
<p>on the other hand, i sometimes come across folks who (because i’m black) automatically start speaking in slang, hip-hop nonsense when speaking to me. it really is the same thing. equally ridiculous. </p>
<p>as a californian, i’ll take english-with-an-accent over beach-speak any day of the week!</p>
<p>For cryin’ out loud! If you go to a restaurant and the food’s no good, do you have a pizza delivered to the restaurant? Of course, I think people should work around minor obstacles. But the idea that a student should grin and bear it in a class where the teacher is incomprehensible and the textbook is unusable is crazy, in my opinion. Of course, that’s what I did–I made the best of it, and didn’t learn much. I wouldn’t put up with it now, but of course, I’m a grownup now.</p>
<p>If this is an issue to a student, s/he should check it out. I don’t like it either. A few would be fine, but if Ihe vast majority were heavily accented ESL profs and grad students in my major, if I were a student, or for my student, t would figure in my decision if there were alternatives at equally desirable that were not in that situation. </p>
<p>However, do bear in mind that in certain areas of study, that is going to be the case, especially in advanced studies. If it is that much of a bother, do consider that.</p>
<p>My son could not stand one professor he had early in his college years who, in addition to his very heavy accent that made him difficult to understand, was temperamental and inflexible. He has ended up being my son’s mentor. A task master, he is with a lot of issues, but I cannot begin to list all of the wonderful opportunities, grants and awards he has helped my son attain. You never know where the gold is until you dig a little deeper and maybe work a little harder.</p>
<p>Should universities also avoid hiring British or Australian professors because of their accents? Or what about professors with lisps, or those who stutter?</p>
<p>I think that if a university has a large number of professors and grad students with heavy accents and speech impediments, it should look as to why that is the situation. Sometimes one finds that hiring a certain type occurs when someone with a huge influence in the hiring is looking heavily in a certain area over others. Like I happen to know that a certain medical department is rife with doctors from a certain area/university due to the way the hiring works. If it isn’t affecting the way things are working, it is no big deal, but if you are finding student fleeing the major or the university and the remarks are peppered with complaints about this, I think the school does have an issue it needs to address, don’t you agree? It such cases, it is more than a random happening most of the time. So the reason has to be examined, not just the situation.</p>
<p>I doubt that if this were the case at Harvard, it would even make a blip on the chart for applicants and yield. But if this were a different school on the cusp of getting high quality students and where it makes a true difference, it is something to investigate. I think that courses/profs that are getting a large number of students avoiding them are being affected. It’s a problem of sort as well as guide for university officials to see where the school is losing students and usage. The school then has to decide how to proceed. </p>
<p>So no, right off the bat, I would not say that, Warbrain. But if you notice that 95% of your professors hired have heavy British or Australian accents, say hired in the last few years, and that students are complaining, not filling those classes or leaving those majors, don’t you think that if you were in charge of the situation, you might want to address it? I guess a starting point is how the heck is it that you are hiring so heavily in that area?</p>
<p>I avoid professors with accents, including post British accents and not so posh Australian accents. Hey, If I don’t understand what they’re explaining, it’s not worth my money. I had exactly one or two professors that’s in that category. Come to mind, I almost flunked a course(I rarely did) on a New Jersey accent. Distracting!</p>
<p>Who suggested that universities should avoid hiring people with accents, warbrain? Some people who have had experience have suggested that, on occasion, a teacher’s accent can be a factor in his or her effectiveness as an educator. It is reasonable to want to know whether there are lots of teachers in a given institution or department for whom this factor comes into play. It is also reasonable to expect that your education will be challenging in all kinds of ways that you will not be able to control for or predict, and to be open-minded. Like cptofthehouse, I have seen my child do an about-face on a teacher she started out not liking.</p>
<p>Now, of course, if I needed to I could go online or go to the library and learn everything I need to know about differential equations … Wait. No. No I couldn’t. I am a smart, intellectually curious person who very likely couldn’t teach herself this or any other mathematical concept. If I needed to learn this subject, I would have to take a class.</p>
<p>And if I were to take a class covering differential equations, I’d come to the table prepared to do PLENTY heavy lifting. But I would also expect the person standing up in front of the class in the role of teacher to, umm, TEACH. Now, since I am not naturally gifted in math, I would search for a teacher who is good at teaching people like me. And I would search for the appropriate course level (“Diff E-Q for People Who Would Rather Be Talking About James Joyce,” for example). That’s my responsibility. If I am paying for the course, however, I expect to have a teacher who can COMMUNICATE the course material at the advertised level. This does not mean I believe college teachers should be screened for their accents or speech impediments. It means I expect them to be able to teach when they are being paid to teach.</p>
<p>[MIT</a> OpenCourseWare | Mathematics | 18.03 Differential Equations, Spring 2010 | Video Lectures](<a href=“http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-03-differential-equations-spring-2010/video-lectures/]MIT”>http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-03-differential-equations-spring-2010/video-lectures/)</p>
<p>Thanks, BCEagle91. But what is your point? I would not be teaching myself if I watched Professor Mattuck’s video series. I would just not be paying tuition to MIT. It’s great that these resources are out there but this is just another way to access teaching from a qualified expert. I don’t have the time this minute to determine whether it’s good teaching. Maybe I’ll dig in the next time I’m feeling intellectually ambitious.</p>
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<p>Utter non-sense! You do not pay your co-workers. You earn a living from selling to your clients. In this case, the students are the customers, and most pay an arm and a leg for their education. Schools do not offer a discount for subjecting students to poorly prepared assistants or professors. If one can (although should NOT) put up with pedagogical deficiencies, the poor command of oral and written English goes well beyond the acceptable. As far as this being good practice for the working arena … what a crock. We are talking about education! We are talking about an education system that is extremely costly but tries to sell you a Skoda at the price of a Mercedes. </p>
<p>Students and parents who foot the bills should complain vociferously when that happens. Of course, there is a better way and that is voting with your feet. Walk away … no … run away from the academic factories that rely extensively on this kind of disgraceful practice. How do you recognize them? Look at the fabric of the graduate programs. </p>
<p>Fwiw, the OP should be commended for asking a question that is rarely answered honestly. </p>
<p>PS Cobrat, not only students who fare poorly and have bad grades complain about this. Top students with reasonable expectations of excellence also complain when having to face TA who have no business be in front of undergraduates or graduate students.</p>
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<p>Many are paid primarily to do research.</p>
<p>I watched about 20 minutes of the first video. He seems to communicate well.</p>
<p>If the lectures in your university class aren’t very good, there are a lot of other options out there. I’ve heard of students sitting in on the lectures of their class taught by another professor. Or grabbing courses off the internet.</p>
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<p>Well, universities should pay them to do research, but should stop pretending those people are … teachers. And screw masses of students of what they bargained for, namely getting a HIGHER education.</p>