Organic Chemistry is not easy and it's not supposed to be easy. At many a school it is the "weed out class". I understand the pandemic has made things difficult for students but quite honestly the students just have to put in the effort and also not be a quitter. I know it's now harder to get into medical school than it ever probably has been but it's also a bad look for students to get a professor fired because his test was too hard. If that's not some millennial privilege screaming at us I don't know what is.
Actually, just Gen Z I believe. This is the entitled group that doesn't do " Hard"
I really
never thought I'd come to this side of it, but as an MSTP student I've now had a ton of exposure to the gen Z college/grad school crowd. The internet ruined these kids. I admire their commitment to equity and fair practices, but it's not a selfless mission on their part, and they constantly apply concepts reserved for legitimately downtrodden minorities to themselves, which is where you get this "blame everyone else" mentality. Social media is essentially a never-ending scroll of rage-bait at this point. Rage = engagement. They are basically all emulating social media and the digital worlds they live in by shifting blame towards any large system and then expecting applause/attention for doing so.
It's human nature to victimize your own situation and abuse attribution bias. Wealthy white women, who are admitted into the PhD program at much higher rates, enjoy several-fold higher fellowship success rates in this field, are actively recruited by professors (for diversity bonus points on grant applications), and will be actively recruited for faculty positions will tell you with a straight face that they experience "oppression" within academia. If you told me you were discriminated against for promotions at Goldman Sachs, I'd believe you. If you told me black students from poor families didn't have enough support to overcome a transition into academia, I'd believe you. Tell me that [super liberal/leftist university in a super liberal city] is punching down on white women who grew up in the suburbs and I'm not sure I can take you seriously. One of my new labmates is a Muslim girl who passes for white and has a CEO father who makes mid-seven figures. She doesn't miss a single opportunity to claim discrimination/racism/sexism whenever she doesn't get what she wants. The people actually experiencing oppression in academia aren't even in the room.
The gen Z undergrads are even worse, because their rage is directed towards anything that is inconvenient for them. They're teenagers or barely past it.
Like, these kids will rage against the machine and claim professors and universities are evil because someone is putting a small obstacle between them and their plans to "support equity and diversity" through... obviously selfish career advancement 🙄. Really? That's where you're directing your rage? An 82 year old who plays a small role in the most meritocratic system that exists in our highly inequitable world? The non-profit education system that single-handedly drives innovation for fractions of a penny on the dollar? Very cool.
There is probably more to the story than is mentioned in the article. Whining about the whippersnapper generation gets clicks, but in reality this is an 82 year old professor who is probably a bit past his prime. I can remember a couple tenured professors who should have been put out to pasture.
Oh, while I'm sure the students don't really have a leg to stand on, I'd bet my left that this guy was unapologetic and antagonistic. Doctors can avoid being sued by getting patients to like them. Professors can avoid getting fired by putting minimal effort into looking like you care.
