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<p>I have trouble believing that you couldn’t have gone and asked about that ahead of time. I admit, there are a few teachers who just pull problems with your paper out of their ass. But from my experience, when someone complains about how a humanities teacher is so horrible and unfair, it’s usually because they never asked or thought about what he or she would like to see written.</p>
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<p>Untrue, sorry.</p>
<p>Bad humanities professors come in all shapes and sizes, just like bad technical profs do…</p>
<p>Sometimes they are blatantly “stupid or wrong” or “not open to alternative ideas” - and in that case, you can just write down the “wrong” or “as said in class” answers. That is, what they want to hear.</p>
<p>But sometimes, just like bad technical teachers, they are poor at communicating their ideas or inconsistent in communicating their ideas. Therefore, it’s entirely possible students wouldn’t have a clue what a bad English prof “wanted” to hear, in the same way a technical major wouldn’t understand how the prof wants them to do a problem set.</p>
<p>Alternatively, it can be said that a right answer in a technical class is a right answer. You can use the textbook, tutors, etc. But if a teacher doesn’t like your essay, after a point there’s nothing you can do about it. You can pick their brain as much as you like, but some profs just make no freaking sense. True, I’ve had VERY FEW profs like this. Maybe one out of tens of English and history classes. But they exist, and sometimes they’re impossible to overcome. </p>
<p>However, if you are consistently getting “bad profs” then maybe the problem IS with you 
But one or two? In either a technical or humanities major, that’s life. Everyone (well, some people get awfully lucky, so let’s go with most everyone) gets a C or two this way.</p>
<p>yes some college professors suck at their jobs. This is extremely obvious. Some have a biased view and try to share that view with the class (most likely liberal). My advice is to use ratemyprofessor.com to make your life as simple as it can be bc some college teachers are much easier then others.</p>
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<p>We had to write a paper about transculturation in art. She told us to write about some artist (don’t remember who… Van Gogh maybe?) and write about transculturation. The entire rest of the college believes that you can have transculturation WITHIN a country. She did not. We assumed she did since that is part of our core curriculum (transculturation that is) and the whole college- every other professor I’ve come in contact with- believes that transcultuarion can be within one country, as long as different cultures are in contact. I wrote about how different cultures in a country were reflected in the artist’s art. After the paper was handed BACK and we all bombed, she told us that she believed that there could only be transculturation BETWEEN DIFFERENT countries. She had NEVER mentioned that and in fact it goes against what we’re taught in our other classes. </p>
<p>So please, explain to me how we (my whole class) was supposed to know when she had NEVER mentioned it and it is one of the pillars of our college. Something that the REST of the college which disagrees with her on. Please, tell me.</p>
<p>I guess it depends what you are blaming them for. I used to tutor math at a community college and there was one instructor who taught off curriculum, and very poorly at that. He taught a developmental algebra class, but the material he covered was stuff you would find in upper division classes. He also didn’t use a book. Instead, he would hand out blurry print outs from web pages like wikipedia. Most of the tutors didn’t even know what he was covering. By the end of the semester his classes would be almost empty. Those who didn’t drop (generally for fin aid reasons) rarely passed, and those who did pass were rarely successful in the next class level.</p>
<p>Surely that is a “bad” instructor who can be blamed for a lot. Although, in that case I think the school was far more at fault. I always wished the students would get together and complain to the department head, but because of my position I couldn’t say anything negative about this person.</p>
<p>It was very frustrating because it made students feel even more insecure about their math abilities, and I think lead to a lot of students quitting school completely thinking they couldn’t “hack it.”</p>
<p>The idea that there can’t be bad professors in humanities or sciences/engineering is silly. There can be terrible professors in any subject. The only way a subject could be free from bad professors would be if the subject was inherently obvious and required no professor. Since there aren’t subjects like that, all subjects can have bad professors.</p>