Have you ever had a professor that was so bad that he/she killed your drive ?

[OrganicMLover]

Have you ever had a professor that was so bad that he/she killed your drive ? I am a pretty motivated student but I have a Cell Bio prof this year that is so bad he has killed my interest in his class. His lectures are useless and he tests exclusively from his lectures. I am considering taking a B in that class and blowing off the final. I hate this situation.

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[Megalofyia]

Yes, right now I have a teacher like that.. Thus trying to get my paper written this weekend is like pulling teeth, and actually that would probably be more preferable.

 

[thirdunity]

Have you ever had a professor that was so bad that he/she killed your drive ? I am a pretty motivated student but I have a Cell Bio prof this year that is so bad he has killed my interest in his class. His lectures are useless and he tests exclusively from his lectures. I am considering taking a B in that class and blowing off the final. I hate this situation.

Yes - had these aplenty - but not in art, not science. I hated every single art teacher I've ever had. Which is one reason I am no longer an art major.

Regarding these kind of teachers though - in your case, you're already right in the final stretch. May as well just suck it up and try for the best grade you can. It'll be over soon enough.

Edit: I meant *in* art, not "not in art".

 

[DrBowtie]

I agree with third unity, youve already put up with it enough to be in the A/B range, just put in a bit more effort and make sure it is an A. Nothing like claiming victory over these type of profs.

 

[Hoberto]

OMG, last semester the instructor for molecular thermo was absolutely horrible. He insisted on having students answer homework problems on the board. Many times no one in the class had figured out the solutions but rather than explaining the problem he would force a random student to go to the board and attempt to solve it. Then, when the student couldn't solve the problem he would make fun of them. Literally, he would LAUGH at whoever was at the board and make disparaging comments about their intelligence. He wouldn't go through the problems or provide solutions. Then when the test averages were in the 20s and 30s he'd lecture us about working harder. WTF?!

He refused to see students during his office hours for the class. To make matters worse, he is the chair of our department. I could go on and on about this prof. He was simply the worst instructor I've ever had.

 

[dr.z]

My thesis mentor is really horrible. I have lost all of my motivation to finish my degree.

 

[PostalWookie]

I had an orgo prof that happened to be teaching two courses at the same time - our regular freshman orgo and advanced orgo for grad students. That lazy **** decided that he was going to use the grad student syllabus on us freshmen. We spent 2 months on various organometallics (because it was his specialty), then like a month learning how to synthesize everything from aldosterone to prozac to crystal meth.

Oddly enough, I still stuck with my biochem major. Go figure

 

[KiKat37]

I agree with third unity, youve already put up with it enough to be in the A/B range, just put in a bit more effort and make sure it is an A. Nothing like claiming victory over these type of profs.

I agree with the above post. Just put in a bit more effort and you'll be done... Plus, you'll have your "revenge!"

And, yes, I had one of those professors when I was undergrad. He killed genetics for me... I went to the first two lectures and then studied on my own. I only went back to class for exams after that. But, I still got an A in the course.

I have ONLY those profs now that I'm in grad school. Horrible... I'm writing my final papers now and I can't wait to get them over with!

 

[Hoberto]

I have ONLY those profs now that I'm in grad school. Horrible... I'm writing my final papers now and I can't wait to get them over with!

That's terrible, you'd think that profs teaching grad students would be more motivated to teach. Usually, grad students are more dedicated and focused than undergrad. The classes are smaller, too. Wouldn't this be the ieal class to teach? I'm so glad I have had only the one awful prof in grad school. My other instructors are interested in helping everyone learn, not ensuring failure. Sounds like you are nearly done....congrats!

 

[crazyvladif]

My intro biochem class was team-taught. The last professor taught the unit on genetics, which I'd studied in various classes about 4 times before biochem. Yet after the first three lectures, I realized I couldn't name a single topic we had discussed, and was in fact getting DUMBER. Everyone must've had the same epiphany, because 100 of the 150 students in the class stopped going (myself included).

Enter the final. He's angry. So we're told the final will be multiple choice, but little do we know it's not the good kind. It's the type with 7 possible answers (A-G), where answers A, B and C give single responses. But then answers D, E, F, and G are combinations of A, B and C (i.e., E = A and B, F = A and C, etc). The average on the final? An "F" -- and this was NOT hard material. Talk about killing interest in a subject.

 

[maddscientist]

My thesis mentor is really horrible. I have lost all of my motivation to finish my degree.

Join the club! My thesis mentor is the #1 reason I am getting out of academic science and applying to med school...

 

[MJB]

OMG, last semester the instructor for molecular thermo was absolutely horrible. He insisted on having students answer homework problems on the board. Many times no one in the class had figured out the solutions but rather than explaining the problem he would force a random student to go to the board and attempt to solve it. Then, when the student couldn't solve the problem he would make fun of them. Literally, he would LAUGH at whoever was at the board and make disparaging comments about their intelligence. He wouldn't go through the problems or provide solutions. Then when the test averages were in the 20s and 30s he'd lecture us about working harder. WTF?!

He refused to see students during his office hours for the class. To make matters worse, he is the chair of our department. I could go on and on about this prof. He was simply the worst instructor I've ever had.

Our Chem professor got his jollies off of flunking people and doing pretty much exactly as you described...more a chemistry nerd than a "professor"...still to this day the only man I hate.

 

[deecee]

I had a physics professor who told me that looking at my homework made him think that I a) couldn't do math and b) needed to repeat every physics course that I'd ever taken because there was no way that I could have gotten to that class level without cheating. Now, this was after I practically slept through calculus 1-4, differentials, and advanced differentials, quantum and classical mechanics and aced all of them (without cheating, thank you very much.) i got through about a month of this guy's class before I found out that he'd told 3 other people the same thing, the class average was a 37, and he hadn't given anyone above a D in this class since 1972. And it was a required class!
At least our department finally listened though. I dropped the class, took an engineering course that they offered to make up for it and got an A. I still have to resist the urge to spit on this guy every time I see him though. Thank God he's retiring this year and no one else has to deal with him.

 

[DianaLynne]

Whoa! Amazing thing, tenure, it allows some folks to go mad with power.

here's my story: I had just taken Calc II where my prof was so awesome he made me totally motivated. I did all the homework and what I couldn't do on my own I got help in office hours. I ended up with the highest grade in the entire class of like 75 students. Then, Calc III!

This teacher was horrible. Completely boring and for the most part incompetent. The lowest point was when he started the class to demonstrate a problem with curl and it went wrong. He tried it again, more wrong. He spent the entire class session on this one problem and never got it right. Then he says, "Work this one out on your own." And we never reviewed curl again.

My motivation for math was gone. I squeaked out of there with a C+ and was happy to get it. Nothing will kill a student's interest as quickly as a bad teacher.

 

[superdevil]

my physics professor was a stereotypical, bitter 113 year-old man. when students would ask questions in class he would roll his eyes and say things like "simple problems for simple minds." sometimes when students asked about certain homework problems, he would add to his insults by using props. one of his favorites was to twirl his pencil in the air and ask "do you know what this is?" obviously, the student would be confused, leading the prof to say "its the guy who invented algebra rolling over in his grave." also, he was an adjunct faculty member who refused to hold office hours.

the last funny thing i remember about him was a friend of mine emailed him asking if he knew what the average was on the most recent exam. the prof emailed him a one-word reply:

"yes."

 

[MJB]

If you ever see this man about to "teach" you...RUN!!!!!!!!