Awful professor

[affectiveH3art]

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Does anyone have any stories about horrible experiences with professors? I have a professor who is so disorganized, forgetful and tells everyone they are wrong. Although her negativity and stern teaching style causes everyone frustration I don't pay much attention to it (she's retiring soon).

I'm hoping this waste of a 3 hour class is common at other programs. Did you ever have a professor that was such a bore or awful at teaching?

 

[PsychBiker]

I have a professor who is so disorganized, forgetful and tells everyone they are wrong. Although her negativity and stern teaching style causes everyone frustration

I have one who is everyone worse and I could rant about him for awhile...

Anyways, know that you aren't alone and that even being a Psychologist and/or professor does not mean one will be fair or reasonable.

 

[Rose Tyler]

Good and bad everywhere. I could tell stories for hours and I'm still in undergrad.

 

[Spydra]

Yes I had two in my Master's program that were just dreadful.

One would ignore current research and other schools of thought and decided her opinion was all that mattered. So if in your research papers you expressed a view (even with cited sources!) she disagreed with then you were an idiot and she had no problem saying so and giving you a low grade. Administration refused to do anything about her despite all the students complaints and she refused to make any adjustments based on the feedback. Unfortunately she is still teaching there in the same poor manner. For the sake of my sanity I just played her game so I could pass with a good grade and just moved on.

The other clearly had more experience teaching children and was totally unprepared for the kinds of questions and discussions that grad students spark. She wasn't very confident in her own knowledge and did a poor job of challenging us through assignments. There were also a lot of complaints to administration about her, but she chose to take the feedback seriously and made some changes. The next class I had her with she had made huge improvements and her confidence had gone up. She is still teaching there and constantly improving.

 

[Dr_lost]

My Sophomore year of High School, I had a Algebra teacher that failed the entire class except two people that passed with a "D" (mind you my class was about 22 people). Of course every parent, Grandparent and Great-Grandparent spoke (and threatened) the principle about this teacher. Since she had tenure she was invincible, it didn't help that she was the department head. After failing the class, I took it again in summer school with a teacher so good, that I mad a "C+" and everything that seemed confusing to me prior, was made crystal clear.

My Senior year of High School, I had a Physics teacher that was so absent minded that he would forget what he taught us the day before. Needless to day at first it was fun to take advantage of it (my classmates would agree), but after a while it was annoying. Again,...he was the department head (and tenured), therefore he was also invincible. I passed the class with a "C" because I had to remind him to apply the extra credit to everyone's final test.

My Freshman year of Undergrad, I got stuck with a Biology professor so bad that her reputation literally proceeded her. Everything I heard about her was true. Guess what?...she was also the department head.

Also in my Freshman year of Undergrad, I took Psyc 101 with the department head. Ironically she was a great teacher, but it was impossible to talk to her one on one. It was like she was a Rock star constantly swarmed by adoring fans. But when I took her Psyc 212 class my Sophomore year of Undergrad, I understood why she was a rock star. Her personality and teaching skills are infectious (but she's Hitler when it comes to grading, you mess up and your grade will automatically drop one letter).

What great luck I've had with department heads.

 

[affectiveH3art]

Dr.Lost- I was referring to professors in PhD programs, I don't even remember high school. That was 10+years ago. I attend a Counseling Psychology program and was wondering if having an awful practicum professor is common. My apologies if I was not specific enough in my post.

 

[erg923]

How is your practicum class designed? We met as a small group in house but it wasn't really a class per say, and students were expected to take the lead, be proactive, and to teach each other just as much as the professor did. Kinda half process group, half educational group.

Obviously, faculty should never be disrespectful and you do need to be organized, but there are many styles of teaching and supervision. Sone styles will be more blunt or even confrontational than others. And unlike high school and undergrad, I didn't feel particularly compelled to be "entertaining" in my teaching or teaching exercises/techniques when teaching grad students. That's your job at that level.

 

[affectiveH3art]

Well we have a practicum class and a practicum seminar. From my understanding the class is geared towards "group supervision" with videos of our clients. However since it's 2nd week of school we don't have anything and professor seems to be killing time with horrendous outdated exercise. Last week we had a group "discussion" on how we should not normalize our patients experience (in a reasonable context) and how the professor disliked the term "validation". In all honesty I'm quite confused on what she is attempting to teach? Do we validate or not, do we normalize or not. Especially since she's snippy I don't feel motivated to contribute to a discussion where I know she will say I'm wrong. Oh the dread of this class.

 

[QAsPsych]

I'm hoping this waste of a 3 hour class is common at other programs.

Why would you wish this on the rest of us?!

I think it is common in every program, sadly. I had a social psych professor who was guilty of this in undergrad. It became immediately apparent in grad school who the jerk was and I just feel lucky it isn't my advisor.

 

[deadmau5]

I never thought about this before starting school... but how successful graduate students in the lab might be a good indicator to look for.
There are 2 or 3 faculty that have dismal student completion rates and numerous doctoral "students" who have not met the time-to-complete requirements.

 

[smalltownpsych]

Well we have a practicum class and a practicum seminar. From my understanding the class is geared towards "group supervision" with videos of our clients. However since it's 2nd week of school we don't have anything and professor seems to be killing time with horrendous outdated exercise. Last week we had a group "discussion" on how we should not normalize our patients experience (in a reasonable context) and how the professor disliked the term "validation". In all honesty I'm quite confused on what she is attempting to teach? Do we validate or not, do we normalize or not. Especially since she's snippy I don't feel motivated to contribute to a discussion where I know she will say I'm wrong. Oh the dread of this class.

Hmmm. If you normalize too much then you will end up invalidating your patients experience. You can't have it both ways, prof.

If you don't normalize, then how do you alleviate patients distress over "normal" reactions? I don't want to pathologize normal responses to grief. After all my patients are already receiving invalidating responses from some of the relationships that they have.

 

[erg923]

Hmmm. If you normalize too much then you will end up invalidating your patients experience. You can't have it both ways, prof.

If you don't normalize, then how do you alleviate patients distress over "normal" reactions? I don't want to pathologize normal responses to grief. After all my patients are already receiving invalidating responses from some of the relationships that they have.

Working in primary care psych, with relatively mild or transient issues, it is very important to make distinctions betweeen normal negative affective experiences and patholigical ones. "Indicative anxiety" especially is massively over-treated and pathologized by psychiatry, in my experience.

I tell many patient that if I didn't "feel anxious" from time to time, I wouldn't get all my **** done. lol

 

[smalltownpsych]

Working in primary care psych, with relatively mild or transient issues, it is very important to make distinctions betweeen normal negative affective experiences and patholigical ones. "Indicative anxiety" especially is massively over-treated and pathologized by psychiatry, in my experience.

I tell many patient that if I didn't "feel anxious" from time to time, I wouldn't get all my **** done. lol

True. I also tell people that the only people without anxiety are sociopaths.

 

[psydnyc2015]

YES. I have stories, oh gosh yes. I've had to stifle my reaction or leave the room in anger/frustration/tears/total boredom a few times throughout my graduate training and this is what I've learned:
-It's ALWAYS worse in the first couple weeks of class.
-Reacting (in your head) in whatever way is fine. But try to keep it to yourself or it will bite you in the ass. You're surrounded by psychologists who will be looking for a deeper meaning behind "No really, this prof just sucks."
-Try to look for how you can learn from each class. Make it a goal to learn SOMETHING, even if it's just an exercise in accepting your prof's point of view. Learning to tolerate her weirdness can be a very interesting experience if you're open to it.
-If that fails, figure out how to use that time in a much more productive way. We used to get so much done in our super awful classes, I think one classmate even practically wrote her dissertation. Ha! We also giggle at "confessionsofabrokegradstudent.com blog"
-Remember, you're just a leaf on a stream until you get licensed. Don't fight it. You're here for many reasons, but most likely the #1 reason is to graduate, so just get through this. There will be more challenges.
-Comiserate with others later and laugh about it.

Hope this helps? You're not alone!

 

[affectiveH3art]

Oh thanks! I don't want to feel like the only one

 

[yuinaH]

i do have an experienced like yours, but i also have a prof. who said that "if you think this class was a joke or you hate me or other prof in your class, feel free to drop the class =)" so yeah