The professor for that class was Alice. Alice was the person who spoke in the introductory video and the person who we were supposed to email if we had any issues.
But all of the assignments, lectures, and quizzes were written and delivered by Bob. On the youtube channel “Bob’s programming academy.” The quizzes included Bob’s name, like “if you do X will it return the string ProfessorBob, Professor, Bob, or Professor.Bob?”
This class was really frustrating for me because it was structured in such a way that you could easily pass the class with zero knowledge of the subject - it was totally based on quizzes that you could take an unlimited number of times and we *had* weekly programming assignments but they weren’t graded so there was no incentive to do them (and look, if I wanted to teach myself programming with no incentives I could fail for several years to do that on my own, I don’t need to pay fifty bucks a unit for that; the reason I am in a *class* and am not self-taught is because I need external motivation. That’s why I sought out a class).
Also when there *was* a problem with an instruction that was unclear in one of the videos for the assignments, or if I thought I’d done something correctly that was very much incorrect, it wasn’t Alice who had created the instructions, it was Bob - in 2017 no less - and I didn’t really feel like I could ask Alice for help with an ungraded assignment that she hadn’t written.
So. Now. My Python class.
Today is the first day of class. Professor is Charles.
I go to the mandatory attendance quiz and it is word-for-word the same mandatory attendance quiz as the C# class, down to the final question “what is your personal email address so I can keep in contact with you after the semester?”
I look at the syllabus.
Class grade is based on quizzes. We have assignments but none of them are graded. There’s no textbook, just a series of videos from Professor Bob’s Programming Academy.
So I’d been toying with staying at this school and trying to take more CS classes instead of going to another school, just to try to keep my records easier to manage, but since it seems like that *ENTIRE DEPARTMENT* is five Professor Bobs in a trenchcoat, I will probably be going somewhere else (and once again trying to force myself to do projects that I already know are *good for me to do* but *useless for the class and a massive time suck*)
I should drop this class. I should drop this class and apply for the other school so that I can start taking classes there in the spring because if I take this class and then go into the object oriented programming class in the spring and it’s another professor bob sock puppet and I end up taking twelve units of programming classes where all I learn is how to google answers in a short time frame (something I already know how to do thanks) I am going to fucking lose it.
Also, again: I have a Bachelor’s Degree. I spent five years at a community college when I was getting that degree. I took probably a dozen online classes starting in 2005 and going until 2011 in the process of getting that degree.
THIS bullshit, this “I’m your professor but actually I’m not and all the materials were created by someone else in the department or came directly from the textbook publisher and there is no writing and there are no assignments everything is multiple choice quizzes that are automatically graded” is *dogshit.*
This is NOT how online classes worked back in my day, not even online math classes, and as much as I know adjuncts are getting fucked over by academia in general, this isn’t something that these professors should be getting paid as much as they are to do. Alice checked whether or not students turned in a hello world assignment and gave a pass/fail grades for three discussion boards that were responses to youtube videos. Nothing else in the class required her input. If this is the level of instruction that students are getting then the class is already automated and the students shouldn’t have to pay for it.
This is crap. This is an incredible level of crap.
If you or someone you know is dealing with an online college course that has this little interaction with the nominal professor of the course, turn them in. The department of education clarified or updated guidelines within the last couple of years. We are required to have “Regular and Substantive” professor/learner interaction for the course to be an online or distance education course rather than a correspondence course.
There are a few options to pick from on how to meet that requirement, and instructional videos made by the *actual* professor are one of them. (That’s one I like to use because I also like to provide examples of how to work the more complicated problems.) But that alone isn’t enough. At least two out of five types of interaction are required to meet that minimum.
Eyyyy, I did *not* know about those updated requirements and that is going to be good info to have in the very peeved email I’m drafting to the school administration.
I had a drawing class that was taught like this last semester, and “correspondence course” is a much better way to describe the level of contact we got from the professor than “distance education.”
I’m sorry, professor, I consider publishing your course a day late, having a mandatory live zoom meeting during business hours to stay enrolled for an asynchronous class, and requiring students to use a $60 ***pdf*** that you wrote as their textbook to be exceptionally unprofessional and since I’ve still got 14 days to get a refund I’m totally not paying $150 to take your class.
Also, for all the newbie professors out there: a syllabus is not just a greeting and a list of assignments. If you haven’t given your students AT LEAST your office hours, your late work policy, and your preferred method of being contacted, then you have not given your students a syllabus it’s just sparkling announcements.
But really. Sir. SIR. You teach Speech 100. This is one of the most basic classes with like, 20 of the most widely available accepted textbooks and you want me to pay sixty dollars for a pdf of a book that you rewrite every semester so that there are no previous editions?
Buddy this is interpersonal communication, not introductory rhetoric. Why is one of your *four* total assignments about Socrates?
Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve taken Spch 100 interpersonal communication three times already, maybe it’s the fact that I grew up with somebody who taught Spch 100 interpersonal communication from 1981 to 2018, but buddy what the fuck are you doing?
“Some of our lectures will only be available for 24 hours so it is up to you to stay on top of it.”
Friend, you are teaching an asynchronous online 100-level class at a community college during a pandemic. Get off your high horse, a third of your students are probably parents. There is no reason whatsoever to limit access to course materials to 24 hours unless you are doing it to be a controlling asshole.
Also YOU published your class a day and a half late! You don’t get to publish your class late with an incomplete syllabus and tell students to “stay on top of it.” Especially not since that means that people have two fewer days to buy your PDF textbook and only one full day to prepare for your mandatory 1pm on a Tuesday zoom meeting!
Why do you require me to have access to a printer for an online class? Oh yeah it’s because you expect me to print out and draw on sections of your $60 ebook.
SIR. No thank you.
Kids, new students: this is a level of bullshit and disorganization from a professor that you do not have to put up with. This is a neatly ordered series of red flags that say “this professor is going to be absolutely unbearable.”
Also *any* humanities class where your whole grade is 4 assignments should get serious side-eye. You should be able to pass most 100 level humanities classes by just turning in weekly assignments. 4 assignments means that by the time you figure out how the professor grades you’re probably close to halfway through the class. Look for classes that require weekly participation as a major chunk of the grade because that way, even if you fuck up a project in a major way, just showing up can save your ass.
Me the first time I was in college: this isn’t fair, but I guess these are the hoops I gotta jump through.
Me now: absolutely not. I am too old, too experienced, and my ass is too fat to fit through that hoop. Kid, you are an ADJUNCT, what the hell do you think you’re doing?
One of the stated goals of the first assignment isn’t “assess understanding of the subject” or “introduce basic concepts” it is “prove access to course materials, such as the textbook.”
Friend. You are supposed to have global learning outcomes for your students. If your goal is “teach students how to pass MY” class and not “teach students the basics of interpersonal communication” you are a bad teacher.
Okay everyone get out your bingo cards because the professor just managed to get his class halfway updated and here’s what I’ve found:
“This Class Is Not A Safe Space”
“Discussion question: If you are MALE say four things that you think females normally say. If you are FEMALE say four things that you think males normally say.”
Prager U vid is one of three total resources on the topic of climate
Chris Rock “How to keep from getting your ass kicked by the police” video as part of the “conflict resolution” unit
Democratic-Capitalism-Exceeds-Socialism-in-Economic-Efficiency-as-Well-as-in-Morality-by-Ayaan-Hirsi-Ali.pdf (Paper by the Hoover Institution)
This uncredited image:
The Unfortunate Fallout of Campus Postmodernism - Scientific American.pdf
A video on the “proven” techniques of how to spot a lie from the author who owns this webpage (time to update your security certs, Pamela):
And just for shits and giggles, the first assignment is due one month into the semester so you’ll have no idea what his grading style is until well past the add/drop date and that assignment is the only one that requires the $60 pdf textbook that he wrote. This is HIS description of that assignment:
Purpose – To check that the student has completed initial tasks; included, but not limited to: 1. Having access to the textbook. 2. Demonstrating that the student has interacted with the text. 3. Reading and understanding the text.
Buddy.
No.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Also the midterm and final were scheduled for a one-hour slot on weekdays in spite of, again, being an asynchronous course.
So I’ve already dropped it (good riddance) but I probably WILL contact the dean and say “hey so I signed up for this asynchronous course because I am a returning student with a full-time job and your professor decided on his own that he was going to schedule 1pm zoom times and 1pm exams for all his async students, which is probably going to cause problems for other students who are enrolled because I’d guess that at least some of them have classes that are SCHEDULED for T/TH 1pm class meetings oh and also just FYI your boy was 28 hours late on publishing his class and didn’t get his syllabus up until 34 hours after he was supposed to so I’m not really sure his time management skills are up to teaching async classes and ADDITIONALLY he noted that he would only make the lecture materials available for 24 hours and then did not list when those lectures were scheduled in his syllabus so it would be very easy for busy students to miss lectures because he didn’t schedule them but also won’t be leaving the materials available. So. You know. Someone should probably check on that.”
His score on ratemyprofessor is 1.8 and even the two people who gave him a 4 say “I failed the final because he hadn’t taught us any of that information or put any of those fields of study on his final exam study guide.”
Also, new students, you must learn the proper way to complain to the dean.
Every department has That One Fucking Asshole who everyone wants to see gone but students tend to complain about personalities or “why is my speech teacher assigning an economic ethics paper published by a conservative think-tank funded by the Waltons” and that is not how it’s done. The administration may agree that he’s an asshole, but “he’s an asshole” isn’t a good enough reason not to renew someone’s contract and go through the time and effort to bring in a new hire.
So you get them on bureaucratic shit. “Published his course late,” “did not provide office hours,” “did not provide a way to communicate and did not respond to calls, emails, or canvas messages,” “set required meeting times for asynchronous courses” - THIS is the shit that the administration can pin a professor to the wall on because it isn’t student said vs. Professor said.
Like, look, you are important and your feelings and thoughts matter, but the administration knows there will always be someone who is offended about something innocuous who doesn’t know how school works and they’re not going to write up a professor because of how a student thinks the class should be run. But they WILL write up and add observations for a professor who doesn’t run a classroom the way that the school policy says a class should be run.
It’s that time of year again.
When I was seventeen, I had a college French course over the summer where we had one student who complained to the dean over the professor’s “inappropriate” behavior.
The “inappropriate” behavior was using the word “Madame,” which the student insisted *only* meant “proprietress of a brothel” and was an offensive term to use around her, a Christian student.
Colleges are used to getting *that* level of complaints from students about various professors, and it’s why “my professor was being inappropriate/rude/insulting” isn’t a good enough reason for the administration to get off their asses and investigate. If you have a professor who is being horrible to the class in an actionable (racist/misogynist/ableist/etc) way, document it along with other students and get corroboration; take notes of when the professor is being horrible and at what times and get other students to affirm it as soon after the incident as possible.
But if an asshole professor hands you the beautiful gift of ALSO being a disorganized tire fire who violates academic rules like publishing syllabi and changing meeting times, take that beautiful gift to the administration because that is a *much* easier way to nail their ass to the wall.
For the record I did get an email back from the department head that was basically “YIKES no he is not allowed to set mandatory meeting times, we are speaking to him about that” so someone probably at least told him to knock that shit off and maybe scheduled an observation or three.
As a first year teacher a lot of this was actually super helpful to read so I know for sure what absolutely not to do.
Also, good idea on late policies etc on the syllabus, I hadn’t thought to do that. Thank you!
So for folks who aren’t familiar with me, I’m a returning student who is now in my second year of community college after completing a degree in English Lit in 2011, which took 7 years (five at a community college and two at a state school) and I happen to have also been raised by a college professor. Which is to say, I am very familiar with college norms and basic expectations of students and professors.
So for people (first-time professors and first-time students) who aren’t super sure what to expect in a syllabus, here is some info:
Your school likely has minimum requirements for what constitutes a syllabus; if you aren’t sure what those requirements are, check with your department chair. It is better to make sure you’ve got a full syllabus by comparing to the requirements than it is to assume you’ve got a full syllabus and not have one. Often professors are required to have things like learning outcomes for the class or academic dishonesty policies listed; that will vary from school to school, so check with your department chair or a trusted colleague. Students, if you aren’t sure your professor is providing a full syllabus, check the student handbook; there may be guidelines in there that will help you figure it out.
As a BARE MINIMUM a syllabus should have:
Professor’s name and preferred methods of contact
Listing of class meeting times and professor’s office hours
Required texts (or a secondary document listing required materials that is linked to in the syllabus)
Broad class schedule, including due dates for *at least* major assignments
Broad descriptions of major assignments (This can be as simple as “First Essay” or “Exam 3”)
Classroom conduct policy, including attendance and late work policies.
Grading policy, including a breakdown of how various assignment types are weighted and whether or not the class will be graded on a curve.
Any opportunities for extra credit throughout the term and a description of the extra credit activity.
You might also see:
A detailed class schedule, including reading and assignment dates
List of resources for the class, including links to previous versions of the textbook, campus study centers like the writing or math center
Contact info for any tutors or paraeducators or TAs working with the class
Detailed descriptions of major assignments (usually less detail than would be on an assignment sheet, but you can totally choose to make your syllabus into a full description of all the work that will be required in the course)
Links to non-text materials, like videos or articles, that you will be using for the class
The longest syllabus that I’ve been handed by a professor was 13 pages long and 4000 words. The shortest *complete* syllabus I’ve ever gotten from a professor was 3 pages.
Your syllabus is your contract with the class, and students, it is your contract with the professor. There should be no major assignments, due dates, materials, or possible expenses/scheduling conflicts that are not listed on the syllabus. A student should never have to approach the professor during the fifth week and ask whether they accept late work or how much of their grade the midterm is worth, because it should all be in the syllabus. If a professor is changing something on the syllabus, it needs to be clearly communicated to the whole class, preferably in writing, because the syllabus is the agreement that all students are working from.
Also if you’re taking the class and the instructor is breaking the school’s policies complain *asap* and ESPECIALLY do it BEFORE any marks are returned, ESPECIALLY the FINAL course marks.
Schools are often quite limited in what they can do after final grades are in; they’re much freer in what they can do about an instructor fucking around BEFORE that point.
If you were a disabled college student in spring 2020 semester in the United States, there’s a
survey being passed around all over the interwebs asking about your
experiences in order to prepare colleges for future semesters in light
of COVID-19.
You are invited to participate in this survey of college students with
disabilities. We would like to know what your experiences were as a
student with a disability in the Spring 2020 semester, to help colleges
prepare for future semesters. We are interested in identifying
challenges you had, experiences that went well, or unexpected benefits
of your Spring 2020 college experience in remote learning.
Your participation in this study will involve completion of an online
survey. This should take approximately 15 minutes of your time.
Spanish phonetics was a cool class, in part because the prof had this google voice inbox set up and we had assignments where we had to just like ad lib some rambling about whatever topic into it every week or so, and he had this rubric with a bunch of phonetic stuff English speakers usually fuck up when speaking Spanish, and it really helped with developing not only a good Spanish accent, but a consistent Spanish dialect. But also it was stressful because it’s just like. Calling your prof and leaving a voicemail that he pours over for the purpose of judging your flaws.
God, being reminded of what undegrad soci classes were like is absolutely repulsive. Those classes fucking sucked. And while I very very deeply regret not actually majoring in sociology, I feel that at the same time, the banality of the undergrad soci program would have really made me fucking hate myself. I know I hate reading lots of dense shit and generally think that learning can still happen outside of primary sources, but at the same time I was way happier in the classes where I was reading large amounts of primary sources and original theoretical works, instead of reading Times articles or blog posts about trans teens or having a professor just orally summarize historical literature (in a historical literature class). Being extrinsically motivated to have to read actual books and studies and stuff was so much more emotionally fulfilling than showing up to class to watch youtube videos entitled “is Trump a postmodernist?” and listen to radfem-lites misrepresent Pavlovian response or libertarians fail to understand the very basic premise of nature vs nurture. Like it’s very ego-stroking showing up to and showing up your 13-person discussion class, everybody fully aware that you’re the only person who did the 60 page reading, so you spending the whole class time having a one-on-one conversation about it with the professor while others watch and occasionally try to build upon your commentary in a way that blatantly disregards what’s in the actual text.
Man, undergrad students are not fucking smart. College really was just like being the smartest kid in the elementary school class all over again. What the fuck. I’m not saying anybody–least of all me–should actually strive to be a teacher’s pet, but like… that authoritative affirmation is so damn good, and it’s way the fuck better when what you’re doing is legitimately supposed to be challenging, but you’re still doing it.
SpotterEDU uses Bluetooth beacons roughly the size of a deck of cards to
signal to a student’s smartphone once a student steps within range.
Installers stick them on walls and ceilings — the less visible, Carter
said, the better. He declined to allow The Washington Post to photograph
beacons in classrooms, saying “currently students do not know what they
look like.”
[…]
The emails also revealed the challenge for a college attempting to roll
out student-tracking systems en masse. In August, near the start of the
fall semester, nearly 150 SpotterEDU beacons were installed in a blitz
across the UNC campus, from Chapman Hall to the Woollen Gym. The launch
was so sudden that some students were alarmed to see an unknown man
enter their classroom, stick a small device near their desks, and walk
away. The student newspaper, the Daily Tar Heel, reported on
“an individual” entering class to install a “tracking device” and filed
for school records related to the SpotterEDU contract.
Unclear what was happening, the dean of UNC’s journalism school, Susan
King, had someone yank a beacon off the wall after learning of a
commotion spreading on Facebook. She told The Post she faulted
“stupidity and a lack of communication” for the panic.
Shouldn’t have second-guessed that instinct
Ah yes, over the holidays, I got to listen to some folks who haven’t gone to school in decades have a chuckle over the fact that students have been using the word “fascist” in their protests over this.
This is a surveillance state and it’s fucked up and by no means can this ever be allowed to feel normal. Showing up to class doesn’t even ensure that teachers are teaching well or that students are understanding things, so the very premise that attendance is an issue should be a real flimsy excuse to anybody for a system like this to exist. Anybody with a legitimate concern about the state of higher education would be tackling tangible issues, instead of pulling this lazy and humanity violating crap.
This Feature Friday I would like to give a heartfelt shoutout to The Sportula, a group of Classics Graduate Students and Junior Faculty who support Classics students worldwide through microgrants. Today, I pledged to support them through Patreon with a monthly donation, and I encourage you to do the same if you are able. Even $1 a month from a fraction of you, my wonderful followers, could make a huge difference to the life of a Classics student.
Check out the FAQs below for more information about the Sportula or go to their website.
FAQs
What is the sportula?
We are a group of Classics Graduate Students and Junior Faculty committed to making sure that students from working-class and historically looted communities (like the ones we ourselves come from) don’t fall through the cracks left by traditional scholarship programs; all too many of which have a poor understanding of what our lives are *actually* like and what we *actually* need.
What does that mean?
It means that, in our experience, a lot of programs/resources that might provide money for tuition or a specific course/project don’t take into account the further realities of our lives–that we often also needed $$$ for the work shifts we were missing by taking that class, or to bail our mom out of jail, or to buy the textbooks, or to pay our cellphone bill so we could have access to our online course materials from home, or subway fare, or just a freaking sandwich and fancy coffee so we could concentrate on a full belly/have a bit of sweetness in our survival as financially marginalized Classicists in training. None of those were theoretical examples, and this is why we want to smoothe the way for the next generation of Greek and Latin students like us!
What does the sportula do?
We provide microgrants–petty cash ranging from $5 to $300, no questions asked, to Classics undergrads who need it. We can also work to find you larger amounts of money and/or connect you with mentorship for non-monetary needs (e.g. if you need a classicist from your racial/ethnic group to talk something over with, or if you have an issue impacting your academic career that you don’t feel comfortable letting your department know about, or you need access to a certain journal/manuscript etc). In short, we are the informal old boys club for ppl who never had access to the old boys club, and we wanna give you the cash you need to thrive.
How do your microgrants work?
Contact us through our contact page, tell us what you need, and we will make every effort to send it to you through PayPal, venmo, mail, western union, etc (tell us how much you need, what mode of delivery you’d prefer, and when you need it by). You don’t have to explain yourself–we get that our lives can be complicated and strongly believe that we as financially marginalized people are the best arbiters of what we need and the experts on our own lives. We reject the all too common pattern in academia (and everywhere) that demands working class people “prove” their worthiness or expose/perform their need and trauma for some committee in order to get the money that we need and deserve. That being said, do also let us know if it’s for something like a book or an item we might be able to hook you up without having to spend money.
Where does the money come from? Are you a charity?
No, we are an informal group of Classicists–mostly grad students, mostly at UC Berkeley, who pooled our tax returns this year to start a relatively small (couple thousand dollars) bank account for this, and have committed to growing this slush fund larger. Keep this in mind when you consider your request, but also don’t be shy to ask for what you need! There is no wrong ask–if what you need to survive this week of Greek participles is $100 so you can take off work for the day to study, or $50 so someone can babysit your kid for 2 hours while you write that paper on Thucydides, or $10 so you can take a cab to school after working the nightshift, we got y’all! (Issa Rae voice).
Who do you help?
Any classics/classics adjacent student who needs it! Students of color and students without parental/family support or who lack access to other forms of financial aid by virtue of being undocumented etc. to the front!
Do I have to pay it back?
No, you have to pay it forward to the next generation once you get financially stable, just like we’re trying to. As Toni Morrison writes:
“I tell my students, ‘When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.”
Who can I contact if I have more questions, or want to get involved?
Feel free to leave us a note through this page, or contact the sportula coordinator Stefani Echeverría-Fenn: [email protected].
we were talking about encouraging students to use this at our ΗΣΦ event last night, what great timing!!
Hi hello, here’s a link to some really great scholarships. Some for disability and some specifically for tourettes! All of the tourettes ones are currently accepting applications for fall of 2019, these all require an official diagnosis from a doctor but you can always apply and get the documentation later! Good luck guys, you all deserve to get the education you need to reach your dreams.
If you have a prof who genuinely scares you or makes you feel unsafe…just drop the class. Don’t just take it from me; both of my parents are teachers and they’ve stressed this to me, as has my old classical voice coach: you can’t learn properly in an abusive environment.
Toughness is one thing. My Latin class is difficult. We go through the material quickly and we have a demanding amount of homework. But the prof is tough in our favour; he encourages us to not be afraid to ask for help, and he teaches us useful strategies so we can deal with a heavy workload well. That’s a good kind of toughness, one that challenges students but makes us prepared to take the challenge.
If they’re tough and against you, that’s another matter. If they make you feel afraid to talk, refuse to accommodate disabilities, don’t respect your race, gender, sexuality, etc., give you unreasonable amounts of work without teaching you the relevant skills to handle it…that’s when you get yourself out of that situation.
Just because somebody is an authority figure like that doesn’t give them the right to bully you. An abusive teacher can screw you up big time, and taking control of your life and saying no to that will help you more in the long run than weathering it. One of the most important skills you can ever learn is to not let people just push you around, and that still applies in the classroom.
I had a professor who basically made it clear from day one that he didn’t care to accommodate disabilities from day one unless he was mandated to by the university. I did really poorly in his class and made the mistake of taking a second class with him. I ended up opting to fail even though I did most of the classwork, all because I couldn’t muster up the courage to have to try to communicate with him about my needs.
I had another professor who wouldn’t let me make up in-class assignments that I had missed due to mental health-related absences, even though I had a documented accommodation for extra time on work. I ended up having to drop the class because her policy would have meant I couldn’t pass no matter what.
There was one class that I was particularly looking forward to taking because it had to do with non-Western cultural studies, but it was taught by a racist white lady who would constantly talk about how primitive or inferior other cultures were and would misgender students. I came to hate and dread that class and ended up attending as little as possible, including missing an exam, which tanked my grade.
Another professor made racist comments to me and misgendered me on the first day of class, and I immediately dropped the course, against advisement (and I still assert that it was a good decision).
One professor was absolutely awful and had terrible opinions and would always insert judgement values into her “lessons.” She would say so many culturally insensitive things and had no patience for anybody who didn’t learn the way she taught, which meant my neurodivergent ass got yelled at all the fucking time. She would regularly call the class lazy and rude for not understanding things or for trying to self-advocate. It was impossible to ask her sincere questions about the coursework because she would ridicule people who didn’t understand. I did worse in that class than I should have done, given that it was my best subject, and I’m still pretty traumatized thinking about those experiences. I also didn’t learn anything in that environment.
And one professor/director had a terrible attitude and made it clear which kinds of people were lesser beings to him. He would make rude comments about people with certain backgrounds and there was one time when I called him out (in front of over a hundred students) for openly shit talking somebody who was absent or medical reasons (in front of over a hundred students). He made it clear that he found certain hostilities to be acceptable in his teaching space and there was nobody to stop it when these hostilities were recreated by students. I ended up having an especially bad experience as a result of abuse that I faced from my peers, and I was bullied and shunned until the semester finally ended.
Your grades and your work (not to mention your mental health) will absolutely take a hit if you’re not being given the optimal tools and space to perform your best. If a professor is unwilling to be your advocate or to try to hear you out, then it’s absolutely not worth it to try to learn from them. Different approaches to pedagogy can be overcome, but not if the teacher is going to be an ass about your concerns or struggles. Don’t fuck with professors who refuse to engage in dialogues or who scorn your efforts to learn; it is quite actually not worth it. And the stark contrast between the experiences I had with the professors above vs with professors who actually cared makes it clear that it wasn’t just a matter of taking a difficult or fast-paced course. Teachers who care will work with you so you can get through it and actually be successful, but bad teachers will try to tear you down to raise themselves up.
I used to think talking to high school teachers was the best shit, but damn, talking to people who work within academia is next level. I love getting to challenge professors and professionals and I love building on their work to teach them new things and I love when they expand my own worldview and give me fuel to pump out new ideas. And honestly it’s just so affirming when you can make your professors’ eyes light up in awe because your area of expertise doesn’t quite align with theirs, but they’re just as passionate about that intersection as you are. Because it’s so great that people can want to learn forever, and that’s also something that I want to do, and I want my own little intellectual territory to claim as my own but I also want to jump into other peoples’ boxes for a little while, too, and I want to impress people and I want to be impressed. Just like, when you find that perfect niche of academics who get it (even non-professor academic faculty with higher education degrees) and who regard you as a future peer (because they believe in you!!!!! !!!), it’s just the absolute best.
I’m working on a take-home midterm that requires me to answer 5 very broad, important questions within 4 pages total. I wrote half of what I wanted to for one of the questions and it ended up being half a page. And that half an answer is literally just 4 sentences (long sentences + double spaced). I thought this was going to be awesome because “holy shit, 4 pages! That’s a breeze!” but now I’m in hell because I have to be concise and being concise means running the risk of including the wrong information (ie not what the professor is looking for).
There might be snow coming, so there’s a possibility school will be cancelled on Wednesday. On the one hand, I love getting free lazy days to procrastinate (and it’s midterms week). On the other hand, Wednesday is one of my regular days to work (at my good job), plus I offered to do an extra set up in the morning with my boss, but no class would mean I don’t get to work, which means not getting to make easy bank.
My queer studies class seems like it’s gonna be AWESOME. I made a friend already and the class seems really unique in that we’re going to be discussing queer identity in Brazil, India, and China.
However there’s a chance I could be accepted into a grad class on American queer history (civil war-present) and that’s really exciting but it meets one day a week during the class time of the aforementioned queer studies class, so I’m assuming if I’m allowed in, I would have to pick one.
Also, I’m on track to graduate and I can accept my professor’s independent study to work on publishing. I also just found out that I’m a manager at my (good) job now, which means more hours and more cash dollars.
The number of productive things I did today almost makes up for the absolute hell that was my first class of the day (which I immediately dropped, because I refuse to fuck with any more Terrible Human Being professors).
