UCSD professors -- are they teachers? Or are they researchers who are obligated to also teach?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - San Diego
1

Our son got accepted into UC San Diego and we have been feeling very optimistic that this college could be a great match for him.

Yesterday I happened across the website StudentsReview.com and I was surprised to find so much negativity in the comments about UCSD. I do take the criticisms with a grain of salt, understanding that there will always be some people who are unhappy and that those people are more motivated to write a review than the others who are contentedly busy with their lives – studying, hanging out with friends, etc. Every college seems to have at least 20% of their reviewers voting that they would “choose not to return” to their college. Even Stanford has 27% of their reviewers voting that they would choose not to return. Still, it gives a moment of pause to see that 52% of UCSD’s reviewers say they wish they had chosen another university.

I can easily ignore some of the complaints that focus on things that I don’t think my son will view as problems (no parties, some people’s judgements about the attractiveness of female students, etc.). However, I do become a little concerned about the number of reviewers that discussed their perception that their professors cared more about their research than actually teaching their students.

Could any current or former students please share what your experience has been with the quality of your professors? Have you felt they were effective at teaching? Were they supportive and willing to help their students? How easy was it to have conversations with and any kind of connection with your professors?

Here’s a link to the StudentsReview.com website: http://www.studentsreview.com/CA/UCLJ.html . I’ll include some quotes below so you can get a sense of what I was reading.

Thanks for sharing any experiences – positive, negative or mixed!

From StudentsReview.com (each quote written by a different person):

“Supposedly one of the top engineering schools in the US. I suppose this is true if you base your opinion solely on research. Few of the engineering professors actually seemed to care about teaching; while there were a handful of engaging and outstanding ones, I learned very little from the majority of them.”

“The professors are also so wrapped up in their own worlds that you seem to them more like micro organisms than the micro organisms they are researching. At least the micro organisms they are researching actually get a little of their attention.”

“I’m a high school teacher right now but I recommend that my students do NOT attend this school, especially if they want to major in engineering. Lecture classes often have over 200 people and the majority of engineering professors care more about their research than their teaching. I had a handful of passionate professors that helped and inspired me immensely but most don’t really care whether you learn or not. Tests are graded on a curve with averages below 50% (a major red flag that shows students didn’t understand).”

“This is college where the profs are researchers- you, the undergrad are a waste of their time.”

“Most professors are interested in research and aren’t teachers, so they don’t know how to take care of students. Nobody feels comfortable with professors or finds them relate-able, hence there is no “I want to learn” from students and no “I want to teach” from professors.”

“The place will wear down your spirit. Courses are too big, professors are too inaccessible (even if they are friendly in the first place).”

“I hated this school with the passion of 10,000 burning suns.
I paid for an education that was limited because all of my classes were taught by TA’s. The professors were always doing research or were on vacation.”

2

I guess College Confidential doesn’t allow us to name other sites. Students Review would be the place to look if you want to see where the quotes came from

3

I have seen similar comments and have spoken to many people familiar with the top UC schools. Bottom line - no hand holding or self-esteem ball played here. You are expected to work hard on your own or in study groups to figure stuff out. Professors are brilliant but their work does not revolve around you, their student. It revolves around finding new ways to approach the world and its challenges. And as a student, you get to witness genius at work.

My older son has had a similar experience studying at university in a foreign country as a matriculating (not visiting) student. He has amazingly smart professors who lecture but who do not teach in the way US students are accustomed to learning. Took some getting used to, but he loves the sense of accomplishment that comes from learning in that kind of environment.

Plenty of schools offer more favorable teacher-to-student ratios than UCSD. Case Western is one that comes to mind, as do many LACs. But if you go in with eyes open, I think UCB, UCSD and UCLA provide a great education.

4

Online reviewing sites are typically skewed. If you use Yelp (a popular tool for gourmands and regular people alike) you’ll notice most reviews are 5 stars… In other words, I wouldn’t really trust Student’s Review. Have you tried checking out more objective resources - like crime statistics in the SD area, etc.?

5

In my experience, some professors must definitely be better researchers than teachers. However, in my two quarters here, most of my professors have made an effort to be accessible and helpful, and many have been quality lecturers. I think you’d find a similar mix at most other large universities.

Regarding the posts on that website, I’m surprised to hear that because the general attitude here is not remotely that negative. Most students like the school and many love it. I think the issue is actually a lack of school spirit. An online phenomenon exists where usually people leave reviews to complain or because they’re exploding with excitement (the reason most product reviews are one star or five stars). My guess would be the lack of school spirit results in fewer people showing up to leave the equivalent of 5-star reviews, which makes the one-star reviews appear far more numerous.

A low curve doesn’t necessarily mean students not understanding; a professor whose office hours I went to yesterday said that because he felt we grasped the material, he was willing to challenge us on the exam. His argument was, “This is an honors chemistry course, and I expect you all to compete with MIT and Caltech grads for your spots. I could give you an easy exam, but you’re here to challenge yourself.”

That said, I haven’t taken enough upper division engineering courses. I just know that those reviews don’t reflect the general attitude. Or they were all left by Sixth students.

6

They’re both. Surprisingly enough, when you get a group of people like that together, you usually find out they are not all the same.

7

In regards to your comment about Sixth College- Are you saying the general attitude there is unhappiness? I was admitted into Sixth college and would love to hear your take on it.

8

I was always told that UC professors were all about research and not there for the students. This honestly couldn’t be any further from the truth! Every professor I’ve had so far has been very good, and have thoroughly cared for the students.

9

@taylor5432‌ Nah, I was kidding. Sixth college kids actually have among the most pride out of all the colleges, and their market and dining hall are kinda far but fairly nice. But the rest of us still use it as the butt of our jokes

10

I’d love to hear more about this from students! I know my parents both felt like their professors at UCLA were more interested in research and they self-studied a lot, but a lot can change in 30 years, haha. Bump!

11

I graduated from UCSD a couple of years ago and there I graduated from UCSD a couple of years ago and there was only one professor that I really thought was a bad teacher (of the ~50+ professors I had there). And even for that one professor, I still learned a lot in his class, and I knew going into it that he wasn’t a favorite among students. I could have taken a different professor teaching the same course if I had really wanted to, but at the time, I was in my last year and picking courses based almost exclusively on lecture time and location =D

To be fair, I did take care to choose professors with fairly good reputations for my classes, but even when I had a choice among professors, they were often all popular or had good reviews among students. For the courses, where there was no option among professors, the professors were still all great. Some professors are more challenging than others, and many students (I’ve found) equate challenging with a “bad professor.” I’m not saying this is always the case, but it does happen. Although, again, to be fair, I’ve always been a fairly independent learner and I did fairly well in all of my classes, so that’s probably biasing my opinion. I was also a biology and psychology double major, so I can’t speak for engineering professors.

I did think that all of my professors were very invested in their students. Like another poster said, there is no hand-holding or esteem-building here. They’re here to teach you the material but also to challenge you. They want you to learn and be excited about the material (most professors are teaching material in their specialty, after all), and they want you to think about and understand it but they’re not going to spoon feed you anything. All of my professors were available during office hours and all were available to make appointments to meet outside of office hours. Many professors took on previous students as TAs or research students after they took their courses. Many were also willing to talk about anything–the course, research, opportunities in the field, etc. They were always supportive and willing to help. I was also a TA for multiple professors, and the professors I TA-ed for really did care about the students learning the material. They put a lot of effort into their courses and were as available as they could be. The only time when grad students taught classes (in my experience) were my college’s (Muir) required writing course (and the grad students were great and extremely accessible–maybe even more so than a full-fledged professor would have been) and occasionally when the professor was away at a conference. But this may have been different in other departments.

It does take effort among the students, though, to build connections with professors, but I suspect this would be a problem at all large schools, not just UCSD. There are many large lecture classes, so you have to make an effort to ask (appropriate) questions during class and/or go to office hours regularly and/or make appointments to ask your professor questions. You have to make more of an effort to talk to your professors than you might at a really small school with very small class size. Professors are busy people, but I’ve never had a professor turn down a request to meet me outside of class, especially when I couldn’t go to their office hours. I knew some students who went to their professors’ office hours religiously, especially when they were really struggling in their course, and they had glowing reviews of their professors’ efforts to help them, even if they still did poorly in the course. One student even ran into their professor at Price Center just randomly eating, and he ended up helping explain problems to her before their exam. There’s also the Dine with a Prof program so if you want to get to know your professor outside of the class, you can get lunch with them (for free!) and chat about whatever you want. Accessibility was never a problem for me, but YMMV, I suppose.

As for the curves, a low average is fairly common for rigorous science courses at any school, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that students didn’t understand the material. It’s why curves exist–to adjust for difficult tests. I knew some professors that specifically wrote exams with an expectation that the average would be 50%, and it was their way of differentiating the students who really knew their stuff from the students who just memorized everything. They would have some questions that everyone could answer if you’d paid some attention, they would have some questions you could answer if you had a decent understanding of the material, and they’d have some questions that were really challenging and that you could answer if you really knew what you were doing. Many professors want students to do well, but they want students to be able to apply what they learned to novel situations or problems, which is challenging for many students who were never forced to think that way in high school. When I was a TA, I would field a lot of complaints and concerns that the tests didn’t just require you to regurgitate facts you had memorize. They required you to apply what you learned to a problem you might not have seen before, and many students really struggle with that, especially if it’s the first time they’ve ever done it before. Some of those students who do poorly will choose other fields they are more successful in. Some will retake the class. But I assure you, in all of these classes, there will also be students who do very well. They’re not unrealistic expectations.

12

@baktrax‌ Thank you so much for your insight! I’m glad the teachers at UCSD care about teaching and challenging students! Would you suggest seeing your professors during office hours, or scheduling appointments outside of office hours? Also, do you think it’s better to go to office hours or go to a separate tutoring entity on campus to get help if you don’t understand the material?

It sounds like a lot of the material is very concept-based from your post. That’s absolutely wonderful, and actually my favorite way of learning! Do you know if that’s a common teaching style with most of the UCs?

13

I always recommend students try office hours first. Professors don’t have an unlimited amount of time, and office hours are the times that they set aside to meet specifically with students. If it conflicts with your schedule (like it’s at the same time as one of your classes), then I would recommend setting up an appointment time. Sometimes office hours are very busy, so in those times, it might also be appropriate to set up an appointment time if you go to office hours and aren’t able to get your questions answered. Other professors will do nothing during their office hours because people rarely come, so you should really try to make it to their office hours before trying to get an appointment.

Depends on how much help you need. If you need really intensive or regular help, then I’d recommend finding a tutor or finding another service (UCSD has things like OASIS that provide help but you have to sign up the quarter before and spaces fill up fast). You can also ask the TAs for help, and they often have their own office hours to help students, as well as discussion sections (depending on the class). If you need clarification or quick help or you want to go over your exam or advice on how to prepare for an exam or something like that, then it’s probably more helpful to go to your professor’s office hours.

This will depend largely on the class. Most of my classes were either memorization-based or problem-based. Some classes will be heavily based on memorization, while other classes will heavily emphasis solving problems. Some will be a mixture of all of the above. Some classes will emphasis synthesizing the readings in the form of essays. It really just depends.

14

@baktrax‌ Thanks for answering my questions! I really appreciate it :smile:

15

I am a current student at UCSD. I worked hard to get there, as I returned to school after a 21 year gap and had to attend community college for two years in order to gain transfer admittance. You can guess how old I am. :slight_smile:

I appreciate every moment of class time that I am privileged to have at the University. In my estimation, the professors and the university are top notch. As with any institution, there are professors who are more engaged, and those who are less engaged; however, every one of my professors has had available office hours, and there are always teaching assistants available to help with content understanding. The content is very difficult, and the classes are huge. (My smallest class has been 300 and my largest 750 students.) One must know how to self learn, and be engaged in his or her own education, or the money will not be well spent. I spend all of my free time studying, and there are times that I am not sure if I will pass a class, but work diligently to assure that I do everything possible to get a passing mark.

It is also true that the exams are hard on the ego. I came from a place where I was used to 100% on my exams all the time, and finding that, for some courses, a 70% was an A was hard to overcome. Now I am used to the fact that I may just get a 30% on a midterm, and that is not the end of the world - I must work harder.

And the food at UCSD is amazing, I must say.

16

A huge “thank you!” to each of the UCSD students and parents who gave such thoughtful answers to my original question about UCSD professors. Hearing about your experiences was very reassuring. I do think my son could thrive in the academic environment at UCSD. There’s so much about UCSD which seems like a great fit for him. I’ll be really happy if UCSD is the college that he chooses to attend.

17

An update from the OP: my son chose to attend UC San Diego and is now in his third quarter there. He says he’s been very satisfied with his professors. He feels comfortable talking to his professors if he has questions or wants to discuss something (although, depending on the class, he might be more likely to ask his questions to the TA or the tutors in the computer lab, though that is likely just what ends up being convenient rather than feeling that the professors are not approachable).

Some of my son’s classes have been very large; his foreign language classes have been small (30 students). He mentioned that he’d enjoy getting to talk with his humanities teacher, not about the class or humanities specifically, but just to talk with him in general because he seems like such a cool and interesting person. Perhaps this professor would be a good one for him to invite to lunch via UCSD’s Dine-With-a-Prof program (a student can invite a faculty member to lunch and the university pays for both their meals. There is also a Coffee-With-a-Prof program which allows students to invite a professor to enjoy a chat over coffee up to twice a quarter).

Overall, we’ve been very pleased with what we’ve heard from our son about his first year as a student at UCSD. He is finding all of his classes to be very interesting, not only the classes that are in his major but also the classes that he’s taken to fulfill general ed requirements. It seems like UCSD has been a great choice for him.