Professor Rudeness? or Normal??

Student Lounge College Life
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<p>Have people here encountered any kind of college professor rudeness? </p>

<p>I sometimes find that the norms and etiquette of college professor/student relationships to be rude. Not all, but just some.</p>

<p>I've had some wonderful profs, but also some who just seem annoyed to even have to answer a single question. </p>

<p>EXAMPLE: One instructor I had always seemed to try to assert his authority over any material in the class almost in a defensive way. If we asked questions, he'd get upset either:</p>

<p>i.) Seemingly b/c it sounded like we might be questioning him or his teaching
ii.) He wanted us to figure out the answer ourselves</p>

<p>It felt like a weed-out class....those ones where the profs try to push students as far as they can go and only the best survive it type.....But anyhow, this prof. just was kind of domineering, not very encouraging, seemed to always be grumpy when asked any questions in class, and just seemed to want to plain lecture and be done. </p>

<p>He didn't seem to like students and seemed to care more about his own work. His tone when talking to students seemed domineering and like he was talking down to us. If students didn't get the material, it was like an "oh well...." attitude. It's as if he expected us to be dumb and to fail. And he wasn't very friendly and open to helping.</p>

<p>Worse was that he made fun of some students who weren't as fast to catch on to the material. Just seemed like a miserable guy to hang around....as in who would want to be this guy's friend? </p>

<p>I realize that college is NOT high school and that professors aren't hs teachers who sort of baby you and maybe encourage you, etc. ....BUT, there sometimes seems to be a 180 degree diff. in attitude of even treating students like a nuissance and talking down or rudely to them and not caring at all.</p>

<p>Anyone else experience this or any other type of professor rudeness? Norm? ...Only on occassion? </p>

<p>Do you think it's only a college professor thing? Or did you even see/experience this in high school and/or like the real world workforce? I HOPE this is isolated and people aren't normally like this in the "real world" of work. It's psychologically stressful to deal with.</p>

<p>The ONLY thing I could think of other than the professor just lacking manners or being a real jerk was MAYBE he was trying to "toughen" us up as students. But...even then that doesn't require rudeness....you can be tough without making fun of students or just talking with an annoyed tone all the time. :(</p>

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<p>One thing I’ve noticed (I have 4.5 years of full-time undergrad courses under my belt), is that A LOT of students do not do the assigned reading BEFORE the class discussion, and about 80% of the questions asked in class were answered clearly in the text they did not read. So I can understand many profs becoming upset when students asked simple questions that they would have otherwise known if they had opened up the book.</p>

<p>For the questions not already answered in the book, I don’t recall too many profs becoming upset having to answer them. </p>

<p>Also, if you are at a research university (as opposed to a teaching college or LAC), most of the professors do seem much more interested in their own work and act as though teaching classes is just getting in the way. So that could have been the situation you were in.</p>

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<p>Typically I think professor rudeness is sort of understandable because students are often unprepared or don’t take it seriously, especially in classes that have more new students. But sometimes I have to deal with a professor that just doesn’t seem to care. One thing that irks me in particular though is a professor not showing up for arranged office hours/meetings or not returning emails.</p>

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<p>I won’t justify not being prepared for class before hand and then asking questions you should already know the answer for, but I agree with brownug, there shouldn’t be any cause for being rude or feeling superior. They used to be in our position once too. Heck, at my school they almost make it impossible to actually sit down and read the material because every single prof I’ve had thinks their class is the only class their students have. The workload is horrendous! Especially when I have to work two jobs just to make ends meet!</p>

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I have a professor who can be sassy sometimes, but it’s usually only in emails. He’s a great guy and a really great professor, he just hates emailing. If it’s not very important, you will get sass

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