NYU Professor Responds to a Douche Student's Email - Page 10

This was my rationalization exactly. Instead of taking jogging or some other nonsensical courses, I took art, history, and extra business / marketing classes. And whilst I know that the aforementioned nonsensical courses are plump one's cum. GPA, one can still graduate with a high GPA taking more worthwhile course if one merely applies oneself.

Professor Galloway is an amusing man.

I cook in a restaurant. One day, a new cook shows up 15 minutes late with a cup of Starbucks coffee in her hand. The chef deigns to turn from his task at hand to greet her with, "Hello. Guess what? Next time you're fifteen minutes late and don't call don't even bother to come into work that day or any other day." We don't see shades of gray in this industry. Either your food is up -- hot, properly done and in time -- or it's not. It's all black and white. Binary. This is why the path of normal schoolcraft never attracted me; there's just too much leeway. The fact that Professor Galloway's conduct is in any way in question troubles me.

Ideally? Sure. But unless you find something you really enjoy, it can be very difficult to motivate yourself. For some kids (ok azn kids ), getting an A is motivation enough. For a lot of kids, they need something more than a future promise of great things to come if they keep up their grades. I think that good parenting is essential here but it is absent in most families. And it's not enough for it to start in grade 11 or 12. It has to start at a young age, because good study habits can't just be turned on the year before graduation. When I was at boarding school there was a stark difference between the study habits of asian students and everyone else.

And I think it's much this way in other industries; students just don't realize it. And even if isn't a case of "show up late and you're fired," it will be a case of constantly being late for work will mean bad reviews, no bonus, etc. and you're the first one gone in tough times.

That's why you make your classroom rules black-and-white. Do not allow for the debate about what is an "excused" absence and what isn't. We all have choices to make. When you took my intro microeconomics class you were allowed nine absences (three a week class). Absence ten failed you. Make your choices.

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Students are not employees. If I pay $40,000 a year to go to your school, you honestly should not be able to deny me access to a class I PAID FOR if I am not causing a serious disruption to other students. If you're late for work, I agree, you deserve to be reprimanded. If you're late for class, then that's your own business. I also think it is horrible that the prof basically tried to shit on his idea of going to multiple classes, EVERYONE does that. I think this kid HAS his shit together far better than the prof realizes, as he's diligently doing research on a decision that will probably cost him a decent chunk of the $40,000 he's spending.

Also from what I've learned so far in university, if a professor is condescending to his students it is because the professor is unintelligent. One of the best professors I had was my first year physics professor, his hobby was the theory behind teaching and learning. He was a very soft spoken type, came off somewhat shy. We have all just gotten to university and are unsure what to expect of him, we are learning first year material and are thinking to ourselves, "hmm, he seems like a nice guy, but he seems so shy and soft spoken! I wonder if he's really intelligent?"

Then we found out his area of research was nanoscale physics and millikelvin microscopy He was shy in front of a class but extremely intelligent and well spoken outside of class.

I've also had professors who huffed and puffed, and complained about the state of their students, disdained students asking questions and complained heartily about any interruption of class. One such professor ended to derive almost all of his equations incorrectly, he hated kids asking questions because he rarely knew the answers without having to research them first, and disdained any interruptions because he memorized his lectures and was thrown completely off track by anything out of the ordinary happening. When the class was finished, none of us had learned anything about what we were supposed to be learning about... He gave us an idiotic open book essay test (on PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY) and handed out nearly random grades.

Upon taking a more advanced course in physical chemistry, from a very competent professor this time around, I determined that everything we "learned" in physical chemistry could be learned in 3-4 weeks with a decent professor. And that dozens of concepts he was supposed to teach us hadn't been taught at all. Our 400 level physchem professor nearly keeled over when he found out that not one member of the class had been formally taught activity.

It's very likely that this professor is an idiot who does not deserve his position. People who go crazy over nothing are usually hiding something, they invent rules to mask their own problems and use it as an excuse. I hope that this professor does not have tenure, and if he does, that this incident will prevent him from ever getting it.

Yeah well it's incredibly difficult. Just so you can try to understand it, this post has 'nuance' to it that you probably can't determine either XXXXwad.

If you are at Queen's, I probably have a good idea of who the different personalities are, even though I graduated 13 years ago now.

There's a logical fallacy in the bolded sentence. I did my graduate work and TA'd at Caltech, which is arguable the best or second best technical university in the world, and you can bet all your pennies that the vast majority of the professors there have impressive academic credentials and top notch research, and I can tell you that the attitude a professor brings to the classroom and his (or her, but usually his) intelligence and academic achievements are not particularly well correlated.

Another side of this is professors who show up late for class or who are slow to get class started. As a student I was often bothered by profs who didn't show up on time, and those who wasted the first half hour with needless blathering about non-related class matters.

Extremely unprofessional behavior.

Were most of the professors there condescending or generally nice? Or an even mix? I realize I've only had a couple of dozen professors so far, but it has seemed like a strong and obvious trend to me.

It was a mix. And some condescending professors had great classroom presence. Not sure how you are judging "intelligent", since most undergraduates have only a fuzzy idea of their professors' achievements, if that, but I assure you that intellectual achievement and niceness are not correlated. Actually, some of the smartest (as in, Nobel Prize winning) professors I've known are complete dickheads who hate students. Edit: It's natural to want to believe that there is some sort of obvious karmic justice, but it just doesn't hold up in reality. One Nobel Prize winner famously sits in on seminars to ask taunting questions. And because he is brilliant, people kiss his ass anyway. He makes ridiculous demands on his graduate students, and essentially demands that he be treated like a god. By all outward appearances though, no ill effects. He seems to have a decent family life, and is feted everywhere he goes. Life's not fair.

That wasn't really how I meant it, I know that many bad people prosper. And I also know that there are brilliant professors who see their graduate students as slaves who's only purpose is to get them their next publication. I don't count professors who ignore their students as in this boat, it was aimed at ones who specifically target students for no real reason. A lot of my orgo profs who are big into research just ignore the students despite seeming quite obviously intelligent.

I've had profs who can't correct their own mistakes when the students can, it's not often, but it's happened with at least two different profs I've had. Neither one of these profs had grad students, they were not well spoken, and they specifically targeted students. All the profs I've had who seem to be intelligent were able to take an aside to explain concepts unrelated to the class specifically, but when you can't continue when your flow of class has been disrupted or be able to deviate at all from the notes you have written down, you're just not a good prof and come off as incompetent.

I didn't even know that NYU had a B-school. /CBS grad

Considering the student showed up ONE HOUR late to the class without informing the instructor beforehand, I thought Prof. Galloway was being gentle. What the good professor is expecting is a professionalism from his students, the late student did not display that, hence the email flame.