<p>My son's chem teacher told them they were responsible for over 750 pages of text on the cumulative final and that he would provide no study guides as they should learn it all! Same prof also retroactively changed his grading policy after the midterm to up the weekly quizzes from 10% of the grade to 25%. And he has complained to the class that teaching takes him away from his lab.
But, I'll bet there are parents out there who can top this . . .</p>
<p>Son doesn't say much- the worst seems to have been the honors physics prof who lead the discussions as if they were lectures, unlike the other profs teaching the course and leading discussions (at least the same prof had all the discussions during the same time period).</p>
<p>My kids have had no issues, but my sister, going back to school at a CC, had a first year English comp teacher who never returned papers during the semestr, but gave back a bunch last week, complete with grades (and for some kids, very low ones), with the instructions that, if they wanted to, they could rewrite them all (during finals week!)</p>
<p>As an English Comp instructor, I can confidently say that this is not how to teach writing.</p>
<p>Well, let me take that back, S took an Art humanities class (every student has to take it) where the teacher only gave A's to art majors.</p>
<p>took an intro to public speaking class -- the last two speeches had to be about a life changing event that had occurred during the class. We were told to "get in touch with what is significant to us" and given the example of a person who volunteered at a state park and decided to spend a year wondering the desert in search of themselves (we were told that person got an A). Unfortunately, the six of us in the class (all non-traditional students that worked and had kids) did not have the type of life-changing experiences that were needed to get above a "C" in the class. She wanted us all to decide to become rodeo cowboys or circus jugglers.</p>
<p>I took intro religion this semester with an...interesting...professor. First of all, I expected a survey of different religions and maybe compare what marked them as similar and contrast them...nope. It was some philosophical BS about the characteristics of religion and the virtues and vices of people in their practices.</p>
<p>The man was quite liberal - he told us of the marches he went to over spring break in Washington and how his wife got arrested. He emphasized that he wasn't "anti war" but "pro peace" (there's a difference?) In his rambling lectures/sermons, he would basically rail on and on about Bush, and when we studied virtues and vices, we had to do the virtues of bin Laden and the vices of Bush...if we put anything else on our test, points were docked. Now, I'm a moderate that leans left, but I felt like that was a lot of bias being shoved down our throats, and I wonder how I would have felt had I been a huge Bush supporter.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, and his grading scale was ridiculous...we have a great deal of grade deflation, but he made the scale so it was practically impossible to get an A (I would guess that probably only one person, if any, earned a high enough grade to receive an A). I wasn't too happy with my A-, because I'd done a fairly good job in regurgitating what he gave us to learn...</p>
<p>S had one prof who read the lectures out of his own textbook and, if a student asked a question, simply repeated what he'd just read. He was incapable of explaining anything in any other words. The prof and TAs disagreed so much on the answers that every bluebook had to be collected and regraded weeks after the midterm. To this day, S is sure that one of the problems actually was unsolvable. Too bad it was a topic he actually likes and looked forward to studying, and that this is the only guy in the department who specializes in it.</p>
<p>S had a prof in a different department who, when the class performed poorly on the first midterm, apologized to them all and said he'd only give himself a C for how well he'd been teaching the course. He also said that he'd chosen the very best grad student to TA it. I actually thought the apology was pretty classy, and S said the TA was, in fact, not just brilliant, but a far better teacher than the prof. At least in this case, it proved to be a potential plus for a research university, where a TA can make up for the deficiencies of a professor.</p>
<p>Calc II: Teacher mumbled and had bad handwriting, so you couldn't read what he wrote. This prof turned out to be the good on.
Next semester, Calc III: Son claims class is a complete waste of time as the prof doesn't explain anything. I asked, what about the TA: doesn't speak English well enough to understand. </p>
<p>Painful as it is, my son is learing to learn on his own; a good life skill.</p>
<p>S had a terrible prof. for the second level of Physics for Engineers. He was an older gentleman who apparantly talked in circles, never really teaching anything and then giving tests with problems from out of left field. S got a C- in that class (his lowest grade ever) and was glad just to have survived and move on.</p>
<p>I didn't have any professors in college who I considered truly terrible. I always had some degree of choice about what courses to take, and I made it my business to get in front of the professors I wanted. I had one during law school who was a raging jerk and didn't even attempt to teach Contracts. He's in a class by himself.</p>
<p>I had a crazy physics 100 prof. We would be sitting in the large lecture hall (100 of us - the largest class in the school) and he would hit the back door and start his lecture as he was walking down the stairs, then continue while he got settled, opened his briefcase, checked the watch on his right arm, then the one on his left, and turned from us and wrote on the blackboard, all the while continuing to talk. The bell would ring, and we would be getting up, and he would still have his back to us, and continue talking to the balckboard. One time, a few of us waited until everyone had left, to see if he was still there, and he was, talking to the blackboard, with he back to an empty room!He couldn't explain anything to anyone so we could understand it. Luckily, it was the physics for non-majors class, and if you just showed up (we had to sign in every day) he gave you a D.</p>
<p>I had two myself that were horrible when I was in college. One was an Intro Theater (required fine arts humanties) section TA who told me that he found "breeders" disgusting. He had a policy that if you were more than 5 minutes late for the section, you were counted as absent, and each absence cost you one grade letter or something ridiculous like that. I had to leave one class, take a bus home, pick up my son, breast feed him, take him back to north campus to hand off to my husband (who was leaving work) and then go to this class, which was only held at that time of day. If my son wanted to breastfeed a little longer, it would make me late, and the teacher was VERY obnoxious in saying that because I was breeder, he wanted to fail me, was looking <em>forward</em> to it.</p>
<p>My kid has yet to have a bad prof or TA ... not so with me!</p>
<p>My Assembly Language Programming prof believed that the earth was flat. I don't think he was that bad of a teacher, but the vibes were seriously out. I was thrilled to escape with my C. </p>
<p>My logistics professor, at the classes' request, went over a complex algorithm included in our textbook - but still not very clear. The book used a variety of colors to help elucidate the problem. So far, so good. Unfortunately, the colors of chalk and the colors of ink in the book did not have anything like a one-to-one correspondence. I believe that the class time made it worse - even the people that sort of got it going it were confused coming out!</p>
<p>TrinSF -
thank heaven's your TA took himself out of the gene pool - hope he stays on the sidelines!</p>
<p>
[quote]
S had one prof who read the lectures out of his own textbook
[/quote]
That's just tacky!</p>
<p>I don't have any funny professor stories. My least favorite professor so far is a man who gave several people in the class very low grades on the final paper, despite fine grades on the other two papers. I can think of three people in the class (including myself) who went from getting somewhere around the B+/A- range on the first two papers to C, C-, D on the final. Needless to say, I was not happy. There are likely other students, but I only know about my friends. I shared this story with my advisor during one of my required meetings, and he took note of the guy's name even though he was no longer teaching.</p>
<p>I had a few that I didn't care for at all. My accounting prof (first time around) was absolutely awful and impossible. We started off with about 20 kids in the class, by the end of the semester we had 10, and half of us had to take it again for getting less than a C. (myself included) I did all the work, all the studying, but his tests were absolutely outrageous. I went to see him about it and he just basically told me to try harder. I took it again the next semester with someone else, didn't do any of the homework or any studying and got a 97 in the class. </p>
<p>I also had a guy for Economics that I didn't care for either. I had missed two classes in a row becuase I was really sick, and when I came back he randomly called on me for something and I didn't know the answer and he gave me a lecture in front of everyone how I shouldn't even bother coming to class if I wasn't going to be prepared and that I was wasting my time. I think he was trying to make an example out of me for missing two classes in a row, but that really ticked me off. I went to see him at his office towards the end of the semester and we were going over my grades and there was one really bad grade (which was the week after I came back from being sick) and he was just like oh I wonder what happened there, it was as if he completely forgot that I was out sick and he made an example of me. I wound up with a C in the class and never spoke to him again.</p>
<p>I also had another prof for about five classes or so, and to this day I still don't know what to think about him. He actually was my advisor. On one hand, I think I was one of his favorite students, and on the other hand I think he absolutely hated me. I don't know if he was just harder on me because he didn't think I was reaching my potential, or what it is. He flat out told the class if they needed a partner that they should come to me because I know what I'm doing. He e-mailed me and got me a job during my senior year, but I never got above a B from that man. When he got me that job he told the man that I was one of his brightest students and that I would not let him down. It didn't matter what i did, I could not get an A. There were group work projects where my partners would get an A and I would get a B... all kinds of weird things. My boyfriend did really well in all of his classes and got A's in them all, so I know he did give out A's.. apparently just not to me. (and my boyfriends work was all really really good and deserving of those A's)</p>
<p>
I think I had your dude's fath...grandfather.:) And I think we have a bingo with the statement about potential. I'll never forget my prof looking at my answer and a roomate's answer in response to my complaints about grading. His was marked with a number declaring mastery (let's say 20 points) and mine was marked substantially lower (let's say 15). </p>
<p>I was livid . Jumping up and down . I had the unfair prof dead in my sights. "How can you give him 20 and me 15? My answer is better, more complete and more correct. H just stared at me like I was an idiot. And then he spoke "Mr. Blankman, what you fail to grasp is that this was an B paper as it came from Mr. Jones while your paper was a C paper because it came from you. What is so difficult about that for you to understand? You can do better. I don't know if he can."</p>
<p>Guess what? He still ranks as number one in my book and I took the crusty b#@$%$# probably 5 more times. He wrote my rec to law school. </p>
<p>As to the OP's question - D hasn't had any duds. Yet. I know she'll have one but she's using ratemy , drop and add, and anything else she can find.</p>
<p>I had a horrible professor for my applied math class at BU. To start, this man had a thick Turkish accent and it was very hard to understand him in the first place. So he teaches the class at a crazy pace that almost no one but the math majors can follow and expects us to know things we never learned before. This in itself wasn't so terrible but here is why I believe he is the worst I had. He was a rude and inconsiderate man who berated you and made you feel stupid anytime u asked a question or asked him to slow down or repeat something. He would only show good treatment to the people who already knew everything and could coast. People were afraid to raise their hands because they did not want this man cutting them down. He would get very angry when students began packing their bags at the very tail end of the lecture. He then made us stay 10 min late and we were all late to our next classes. A few days later, I had a doctor's appointment and had to leave about 10 minutes early. I started packing my bags a few minutes before the end of class and was just going to sit for the last few just to hear the end. But he sees me pack up and points me out in a room of 100 people and says, "You, get over here and write your name down." I say, "I have an appointment, I need to get to it. The only reason I packed was so I could be ready to leave and still be able to sit to hear the end". He tells me he doesn't care where I have to be, and wrote me up for it. I found this horrendously unfair and inconsiderate of the man. One day, a student was very sick and came in late with a doctor's note, he then tore the note up in front of the class, told the kid he gets an F on the quiz for the day, and kicked him out of the room while everyone watched. Made sure to give him the worst possible evaluation and sent a direct letter to him saying exactly how bad a professor he was to us.</p>
<p>I wouldn't call them bad, but two of my professors this semester have certainly gotten me a bit mad. Let me explain.</p>
<p>The first one doesn't explain anything properly and will continually make mistakes and skip over parts he just assumes we know. It's annoying, but I didn't care all that much. The other one is a great teacher in his own right, but their main problem is: THEY BOTH DON'T KNOW HOW TO WRITE TESTS.</p>
<p>The one writes a 3 hour test for a 1.5 hour exam period, knows one question is impossible, but assumes we'll figure that out and not try it, and when I asked specifically if a certain question was going to be on a test and how to do it (since he never taught us) he said don't worry about it. Low and behold it is the question that screwed everyone (seriously, the same example question that I asked to get answers to was almost exactly on the test).</p>
<p>The other knows he writes 2 hours tests for 1 hours test periods, but assumes the students will stick to the first problem until they finish and so doesn't care since he likes his averages around a 50 anyways. Obviously no one completely ignores the second problem so they screw themselves over completely.</p>
<p>4 tests total for the 2 classes, averages of: 34, 32, 45, 38.
Nice.</p>
<p>curm, yeah. i know just how you felt. i just sent you a PM with a similar story.</p>