<p>
These are ridiculously non-parallel analogies to the situation the OP described.</p>
<p>this professor sounds like a complete a$$hole!!!</p>
<p>It’s a strange way to open a class, that said, both my #1 and #2 loved, loved the tough love teachers…#3 not so much. So perhaps since it’s 50/50 whether “tough love” works or not it’s the tactic this prof took. Would he get the same results with a mushy, gooey, huggy intro…perhaps not. The comments made about learning to work with different styles is spot on.</p>
<p>I don’t agree that the opposite of this prof’s style would be “mushy, gooey, huggy.”. It would simply be clear, professional, adult, and non-offensive.</p>
<p>Something like this would do fine:</p>
<p>“This class is very challenging, and it will be difficult for some of you to do as well as you might be accustomed to. My tests are tough and my work-standards demanding. I encourage you to work very hard and to be prepared for the rigors of this class.”</p>
<p>Something like this would do even better:</p>
<p>“This class is very challenging, and it will be difficult for some of you to do as well as you might be accustomed to. The syllabus provides detailed information on the resources that are available to you to help you succeed in this course, including my office hours, the TA’s office hours, the department’s peer tutors, and the Writing Center. I especially recommend that freshmen make use of the Writing Center because it has been my experience that freshmen cannot do well in this course unless they refine their writing skills.”</p>
<p>In other words, although I agree with momofsongbird that the professor should be professional and non-offensive in explaining the difficulty level of the course, I think that he/she should go one step further – especially since this is course for freshmen – and point out the resources that are available to help students succeed. If the goal of the course is for students to successfully learn the material (not to “weed out” people), then the professor would have no reason not to provide students with this information.</p>
<p>Drop-add period usually lasts for several weeks. Your daughter can stay in for a while and see if she enjoys the class. She might find that she likes this class and dislikes others-- who knows.</p>
<p>If the description of the prof’s remarks were accurately reported by the OP, clearly the guy is a jerk. Who could argue with that? But as the student later discovered, he was worth sticking with. My d registered for a particular class ignoring Ratemyprofessor against my advice. She quickly learned that quality of teacher trumped fabulous schedule and switched sections after 2 weeks. The rating resources may not be perfect, but if you can see a trend, I would pay attention.</p>
<p>I suppose if the class really is designed to weed people out, the students should be told that. Are there still such classes?</p>
<p>I wonder if the professor said all of that so that the slackers would switch out and the serious students would stay.</p>
<p>Some professors take a very tough line during the first class so as not to have to deal with students who refuse to work under any circumstances. Freshmen in particular may need to hear a tough line at the beginning in order to take a class seriously. Otherwise, some have magical thinking. They assume they can skip class, show up hung over, do assignments at the last minute and still get great grades.</p>
<p>More reason for your D to ask upperclassmembers about the professor.</p>
<p>
Absolutely. At School X, which I won’t name, there are too many Pharmacy wannabees. The school was requiring them to take 2 semesters of General Physics (the calculus based one), with a teacher who made the exams so difficult that the average score was in the 50’s. By the end of the 2 semesters, wa la, a much pared down pre-pharm class. I don’t think this type of thing is all that uncommon.</p>
<p>
Hungover? I adjuncted at a jesuit college and had students show up drunk and/or high and smelling of pot.</p>
<p>I have encouraged D to look at the reviews posted for this prof. As I mentioned previously, I did check him out and was very surprised at the glowing reviews he’s received from. </p>
<p>I’m sure a big part of D’s (an my) reaction was based on the fact that this was the very first class on the very first day of her college life. Had experience been at a somewhat later time I’m sure emotions would have been tempered. Today will be the second class meeting. Hopefully things will settle in.</p>
<p>I think Marian made a really important point early in the discussion: namely that (in some regions of the country, your mileage may vary, fill in other disclaimers here) this kind of “challenge” may have a differential impact on students, by gender. </p>
<p>I am not discounting the examples given by GTAlum and scout59. However, at my university, faculty in the sciences provide undergraduate advising for their majors, and so I have discussed classes and reactions to experiences with a large number of students, over a long time. Locally, the women students do seem to be more adversely impacted by this approach than the men students. </p>
<p>Organic chemistry lab, taught traditionally, is probably the worst case. There are plenty of women students who get A’s in the lab, to be sure. At the faculty level, though, organic chemistry is one of those specialty areas where the under-representation of women is most pronounced (despite the presence of some eminent women in the field).</p>
<p>The current generation of students is not familiar with Professor Kingsfield from Paper Chase–it would probably help to immunize them against the “boot camp” approach, if they were.</p>
<p>I just read this thread, and I am mystified as to why so many of you have a strong negative reaction to the professor. According to the OP, he said three things:</p>
<p>First, that his tests were hard, and that most students would get less than 50% on them. That is probably factually accurate. It is certainly a professor’s prerogative to give challenging tests, ones that will help students understand how much they have to learn, and that will also support fine distinctions among students at the top of the class.</p>
<p>Second, he told them that the class would be graded on a curve, so that they needn’t worry about their low test scores. “Failing” the tests would not mean failing the course.</p>
<p>Third, he told the freshmen that in his experience freshmen didn’t know how to write to college standards, and that they should expect to get Cs on their papers at first. That was probably accurate, too. I taught a 10-week literature class to seniors at a fancy prep school a number of years ago, and if I had used any kind of adult standard to grade their work only the very best would have gotten Cs. They didn’t know how to write well. A couple of my students from that class are now professional writers, and, believe me, they learned a lot in the interim. Personally, I chose to apply a sort-of curve to individual assignments, so that I would give A-s and B+s to papers that in any objective sense were second-rate, but I marked their papers up pretty heavily, and those A-/B+s could easily have been C-s (had I been willing to give Ds and Fs to the papers that were even worse).</p>
<p>If that’s what he actually said no problem here whatsoever; I got the impression he said something different but evidently I misread.</p>
<p>JHS, from the OP’s report, the curve was a “low curve.”
There was no “at first” in the mention of Cs.</p>
<p>QM - funny you should mention organic chemistry. I AM an organic chemist. I loved my undergrad organic classes (obviously) even though they were notoriously hard; my first-semester organic prof had an attitude very similar to that of the OP’s daughter’s professor. He basically told us on the first day of class that it was his “job” to weed us out, and weed us out he did. </p>
<p>Maybe I just passed along that tolerance for quirky hard-a$$ professors to my daughter. She does seem to rise the occasion when a challenge is tossed in her direction.</p>
<p>i would chalk this up as another life lesson you gain in college that’s non-academic. people come in all shapes/sizes. some are considerate. some are a pain in the @$#. some are reasonable. some are confrontational… </p>
<p>when kids get out in the workforce, they will come across all types of bosses, co-workers, customers, etc. they’ll need the interpersonal skills to handle all personality types. having a professor or two like this one will help prepare these kids for the next confrontational, egotistical, and annoying person they are compelled to interact with.</p>
<p>I agree with mtnmomma and JHS. I don’t think he is necessarily a jerk. He is setting the correct expectations and not letting the initial grades put everyone into a faint or running for their advisers. He is letting them know that this material is going to be hard. He is designing this to test the upper limits of what they know and he will be making them learn to write better. </p>
<p>S1 and S2 had a HS AP history teacher like that and those are the only 2 of my 4 that can do research, read for facts and themes and write well constructed research papers. With S1 her initial failing was not telling the students this was going to happen and everyone freaked out with the first test and paper grades, went running to the principal and had to have PTA meetings. After that she laid it out for them at the beginning and sent letters home with the explanations right up front. Everyone wanted into her class because those who got through it did much better for college. I was sad she retired before my last 2 went through.</p>
<p>"“This class is very challenging, and it will be difficult for some of you to do as well as you might be accustomed to. The syllabus provides detailed information on the resources that are available to you to help you succeed in this course, including my office hours, the TA’s office hours, the department’s peer tutors, and the Writing Center. I especially recommend that freshmen make use of the Writing Center because it has been my experience that freshmen cannot do well in this course unless they refine their writing skills.”</p>
<p>In other words, although I agree with momofsongbird that the professor should be professional and non-offensive in explaining the difficulty level of the course, I think that he/she should go one step further – especially since this is course for freshmen – and point out the resources that are available to help students succeed. If the goal of the course is for students to successfully learn the material (not to “weed out” people), then the professor would have no reason not to provide students with this information."</p>
<p>Barf</p>
<p>"when kids get out in the workforce, they will come across all types of bosses, co-workers, customers, etc. "</p>
<p>Here, you can blow off a jerk easily without negative repercussions by dropping the class.
Out there, frequently you don’t have that option. If you did, in many cases you would certainly consider exercising it.</p>