Current Events > Have you ever had a pretentious professor?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Like day 1 he or she told you they had no interest in teaching the class and would rather be in the field doing research? Carries themselves with an undeserved sense of importance despite not doing what they get paid to do?

I have one who uses Latin every chance he gets, and he teaches Forest Ecology. I'm not talking about binomial nomenclature, either. Guy actually says things like "et al" or "exempli gratia" when giving lecture. Drives me insane. He's one of the aforementioned "I don't want to teach you." professors. Like yeah, I don't want you to teach me either. I want to learn. Bring in the next guy.

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Yes and her attitude made me want to leave academia asap

"My name is DOCTOR smith, not professor or teacher or Mrs smith. DOCTOR. I worked hard for that title"

She literally named beetle species for a living. I hated her.

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He sounds like a real nerd

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Colorahdo posted...

Yes and her attitude made me want to leave academia asap

"My name is DOCTOR smith, not professor or teacher or Mrs smith. DOCTOR. I worked hard for that title"

She literally named beetle species for a living. I hated her.

That shit is the worst.

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Colorahdo posted...

Yes and her attitude made me want to leave academia asap

"My name is DOCTOR smith, not professor or teacher or Mrs smith. DOCTOR. I worked hard for that title"

She literally named beetle species for a living. I hated her.

The term "doctor" is meaningless on college campuses, I've discovered. It just translates to "I stayed in school for a long time, then some more."

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I had a history professor that forced his students to buy his "audio book" as a necessary material for the class. Turns out it was just a low-quality recording of him during a previous lecture. This guy also would say things like "You are going to have to go out of your way to fail this course, all the information is in the book (cheap CDs he burned himself and sold for far too much)."

He was never in class outside of the first class of the year and the last class where he conducted the final.

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BobanMarjanovic posted...

He sounds like a real nerd

He does wear short-sleeved button ups with a tie and a pocket protector. He's from Oregon and it shows. He carries himself like handshakes are beneath him.

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Colorahdo posted...

Yes and her attitude made me want to leave academia asap

"My name is DOCTOR smith, not professor or teacher or Mrs smith. DOCTOR. I worked hard for that title"

She literally named beetle species for a living. I hated her.

i had a chorus teacher who pulled that shit...

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monkmith posted...

i had a chorus teacher who pulled that shit...

LMFAO

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SquirtleSkwad posted...

The term "doctor" is meaningless on college campuses, I've discovered. It just translates to "I stayed in school for a long time, then some more."

Agreed, I knew too many weirdos who refused to leave school because that's all they knew. That seemed to be the bulk of the phds around me

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No. I loved all my professors.

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Colorahdo posted...

Yes and her attitude made me want to leave academia asap

"My name is DOCTOR smith, not professor or teacher or Mrs smith. DOCTOR. I worked hard for that title"

She literally named beetle species for a living. I hated her.

Ugh i had one for this in my computer science class and how proud she is of being a liberal >__>

Other than that I hated having a teacher who was a lawyer before and would brag about his cases.

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Eh. The value of a phd mostly depends on what they actually did to get it, and a lesser extent the quality of the institution they got it from. And that's pretty variable from person to person. But then again I've only met one person that every insisted on the title unironically and she was insufferable.

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My music professor who as teaching me jazz

Told me that Jazz guitarists don't 'bend' on the guitar

Like what

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Not really but I know of some

Colorahdo posted...

Yes and her attitude made me want to leave academia asap

"My name is DOCTOR smith, not professor or teacher or Mrs smith. DOCTOR. I worked hard for that title"

She literally named beetle species for a living. I hated her.

Seems fair, aside from not liking professor. Its disrespectful to knowingly call a Dr mrs or teacher etc. and happens far far more with female academics

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Phynaster posted...

Not really but I know of some

Seems fair, aside from not liking professor. Its disrespectful to knowingly call a Dr mrs or teacher etc. and happens far far more with female academics

Give me a break she read powerpoint to 18 year olds. It wasn't about respect, it was about her superiority complex

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Colorahdo posted...

Give me a break she read powerpoint to 18 year olds. It wasn't about respect, it was about her superiority complex

So only professors who instruct grad students are worthy of respect? She earned the phd, you call her a doctor

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Phynaster posted...

So only professors who instruct grad students are worthy of respect? She earned the phd, you call her a doctor

I guess my point is it's this honor bestowed on her and she's flaunting it like a medal of honor recipient wearing his medal to the grocery store

Doctor is not a title you force your peers to call you. She saw us as lower than her

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Are you talking about her forcing coworkers to call her Dr. or students? Because students are not peers, and ive assumed thats who youve been talking about

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Phynaster posted...

Are you talking about her forcing coworkers to call her Dr. or students? Because students are not peers, and ive assumed thats who youve been talking about

You're really missing the point.

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SquirtleSkwad posted...

You're really missing the point.

Explain what you think the point is

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Colorahdo posted...

Give me a break she read powerpoint to 18 year olds. It wasn't about respect, it was about her superiority complex

For the majority of professors, teaching is secondary, at best. Their job is really to do research.

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Phynaster posted...

Explain what you think the point is

It's not the due respect that comes with the title. It's the conflated sense of self-importance that she feels the need to frequently display. You can make an argument that she "earned" the right to flaunt herself, but it doesn't mean others have to like or respect the manner in which she chooses to do so.

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COVxy posted...

For the majority of professors, teaching is secondary, at best. Their job is really to do research.

Their job, first and foremost, is to educate the students of the university.

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SquirtleSkwad posted...

Their job, first and foremost, is to educate the students of the university.

I think you misunderstand what university is.

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COVxy posted...

I think you misunderstand what university is.

I paid thousands for an education. That's about as far as my understanding needs to go. If they want to divvy up who gets to research and who needs to teach, fine, but I paid my tuition and am doing my part. Bring me someone who cares.

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Cov to be fair you know not all unis are heavily research based

SquirtleSkwad posted...

It's not the due respect that comes with the title. It's the conflated sense of self-importance that she feels the need to frequently display. You can make an argument that she "earned" the right to flaunt herself, but it doesn't mean others have to like or respect the manner in which she chooses to do so.

It absolutely fucking means that if theyre her students. Get a grip.

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SquirtleSkwad posted...

I paid thousands for an education. That's about as far as my understanding needs to go. If they want to divvy up who gets to research and who needs to teach, fine, but I paid my tuition and am doing my part. Bring me someone who cares.

I completely agree that universities should restructure to hosting faculty to teach that are separate from faculty to do research! But that's not how institutions are actually structured, and the people you are criticizing primarily care about producing new knowledge, and are evalulated primarily on that factor. Unless you attend a teaching university.

The issue is that professor's are levied with no less than 3 separate full time jobs. No shit they are going to pay attention to the one the care about, and the one that matters for their career.

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Phynaster posted...

Cov to be fair you know not all unis are heavily research based

It absolutely fucking means that if theyre her students. Get a grip.

I never said they weren't her students. Again, I don't think we are communicating as clearly as we could.

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COVxy posted...

I completely agree that universities should restructure to hosting faculty to teach that are separate from faculty to do research! But that's not how institutions are actually structured, and the people you are criticizing primarily care about producing new knowledge, and are evalulated primarily on that factor. Unless you attend a teaching university.

The issue is that professor's are levied with no less than 3 separate full time jobs. No shit they are going to pay attention to the one the care about, and the one that matters for their career.

Tear it all down.

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jazz professor would rant a bit about "modern pop music" like pink floyd and kc & the sunshine band

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I don't know if I'd call him pretentious but I had a professor that absolutely loved me and was showing me tricks on the graphing calculator and then he'd turn around and start berating someone for not understanding a concept >_>. It was really unprofessional and offputting.

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SquirtleSkwad posted...

Their job, first and foremost, is to educate the students of the university.

For many professors it really is not. Even the best teachers will spend the majority of their time on research tasks, and the success of their career and their getting tenure will hinge much more on their ability to secure research funding than teach. Research is going to have a much bigger impact on their career prospects, renown, and salary than anything they do in the classroom.

SquirtleSkwad posted...

I paid thousands for an education. That's about as far as my understanding needs to go. If they want to divvy up who gets to research and who needs to teach, fine, but I paid my tuition and am doing my part. Bring me someone who cares.

This is just going to depend on the values of the university or department. The department I'm getting my degree in cares a lot about teaching and student interactions, others care much more about research. But it is engineering so it is very important that businesses think our engineers are competent, which requires good courses and teaching. I doubt a forest ecology professor has to consider similar interests.

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SquirtleSkwad posted...

Guy actually says things like "et al"

That's normal in an academic setting. All of my lecturers/professors used the term and I've been to university three times at three different universities.

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IloveJesus posted...

That's normal in an academic setting. All of my lecturers/professors used the term and I've been to university three times at three different universities.

I'll give you that, but "exempli grata"?

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I had a professor who received his doctorate in English literature from Oxford University and would constantly remind us of that fact. This guy was American, born and raised, but spoke in an RP accent. Another teacher who went to high school with him said that was not his real accent. Sometimes our professor would slip up and his true accent would come through.

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One of K-State's Financial Reporting professors was peak "I'm a research professor who is being forced to teach" and he was undoubtedly the worst professor I have ever had. Our first test the entire class failed. He went on this rant about how this is the first time he has ever had a class do this poorly and he was extremely disappointed, but out of the kindness of his heart he was going to give us a chance to make up the poor test by researching our wrong answers and resubmitting them for 3/4ths credit.

Then we talked to one of his other classes and he gave them the exact same rant. I talked to someone who took his class the semester before and she got the same rant. She then warned me I was going to go through the same process for each exam and then ultimately get and A in the class because he put like a 50% curve on the class. She was right. I got an A and learned nothing.

The cherry on top of everything was that he was also apparently a terrible research professor. I genuinely don't know how he was employed.

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Gheb posted...

One of K-State's Financial Reporting professors was peak "I'm a research professor who is being forced to teach" and he was undoubtedly the worst professor I have ever had. Our first test the entire class failed. He went on this rant about how this is the first time he has ever had a class do this poorly and he was extremely disappointed, but out of the kindness of his heart he was going to give us a chance to make up the poor test by researching our wrong answers and resubmitting them for 3/4ths credit.

Then we talked to one of his other classes and he gave them the exact same rant. I talked to someone who took his class the semester before and she got the same rant. She then warned me I was going to go through the same process for each exam and then ultimately get and A in the class because he put like a 50% curve on the class. She was right. I got an A and learned nothing.

The cherry on top of everything was that he was also apparently a terrible research professor. I genuinely don't know how he was employed.

This is very similar to my experience with several professors.

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One professor refused to give As on essays because "no one is a perfect writer."

The majority of the grades were essays so it was near impossible to get an A

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I had a professor in government who'd go on about reading signs as far as current events, foreign policy, etc. goes, and that's good advice, but he would use that to go on about how he made good money from the war in Iraq, and how he was teaching for fun. he liked to pat himself on the back all the time.


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