<p>Are the professors/teachers at Pitt good at teaching? Are there any issues with teaching quality/or style that one should be aware of?</p>
<p>In my experience, with any school the size of Pitt, you’ll find quality varies by professor and even academic department. When I was at Pitt, years ago, I never had any issue with foreign language speakers or unqualified teachers. Most seemed to care about doing a good job and seeing their students succeed and were open to help. Some were simply over the top fantastic and engaged, others were just ok, but I rarely got the sense they didn’t care or were just going through the motions. I think you’ll find good and bad everywhere, but even in the larger lectures, I, personally, never got the sense of “this person shouldn’t be teaching” or “didn’t care” at Pitt.</p>
<p>Great to hear! Thank you!</p>
<p>I agree with wgm in that you will find the usual variety that goes with a large university. My D has complained about some professors, but she still learns what she needs to. There are some professors she loves, but it really comes down to teaching style, and which works for you. But I’ve never gotten the impression that any professor should not be teaching.</p>
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<p>I’ve only had that happen once, maybe twice. The one professor was in the Philosophy department (required elective, so annoying). The other was a MechE professor that made me feel uncomfortable (and messed up our final, thereby messing up by overall grade). But yeah, most professors range from “not bad, learned material” to “OMG I want to take another class with you”</p>
<p>My daughter changed majors because she felt as though the physics department’s focus was on research rather than teaching. She also had a foreign instructor teaching a class with a writing component whose command of English was not what it could have been. He is no longer with the university. Overall, she has been pretty happy with her math classes, which is her major.</p>